On the Man who Made Malice
by whenisaystop
Summary: A good thing about the apocalypse was running away from the person she was and the memory of the worst mistake she'd ever made in her life. That is, until she runs straight into it again. Negan's got a sadistic side, but she knows his weak spots better than anyone. Can Mallory use her history as Negan's former mistress to take him down? Or will he break her first? Negan/OFC M
1. Chapter 1

On the Man who Made Malice

Chapter One

"Allie-"

A finger went up to her lips to silence her idiot partner. Bootsteps went by as they crouched in a cramped crawlspace, surrounded by cobwebs and spiders, breathing stale air. Funny how she would have screamed at the sight of spiders a few years ago - dumb ass fears didn't really exist now, not when the dead were eating the living. A tiny smile cracked her cheeks as the heavy thudding steps faded away. Before the end of the world, she'd gotten her kicks by stealing whatever she could grab; small, meaningless tat that owners had never noticed was even gone. They'd take their possessions for granted and by the time they did see what was missing, she had absconded with her loot and added to her personal collection of trophies. When she stole before – she could only call that time 'before' – her heartbeat would thrum, her palms would sweat and yet she'd feel so fucking alive that not even the shame of getting caught would deter from taking what was her property by right of finders' keepers. Hiding now, packed into a space tight, she felt something stir in her victory. Just maybe they'd win another round against the real monsters.

Looting during the apocalypse didn't give her the same easy high, not that she had sought out to outright steal from the living. People now coveted what they owned; anyone still alive cherished what little things they had and guarded every piece with a cocked rifle ready to defend their only possessions to their end. She hadn't felt that high, the rush of being almost-caught for a long time before the beginning of the end, only chasing it when it helped her stay alert, stay alive. And now, as she was crouching in some infested crawl space with Peter by her side (looking like he was either ready to strike a death blow or throw up on her feet), there was finally, blessedly, that familiar rush of victory. It was so rare to feel like she'd won these days that even something small as a can of beans was worth celebrating in her mind. Anything now was a fucking trophy, worth its weight in gold – if gold still held any type of value.

Beside her in the crawl space and still as taut as a wire, Peter let out a shaky breath and peered through a crack of light between the wood panels, trying to get a gauge on whether the coast had cleared. She would have done it herself but there was always a risk that their potential assailants would jab a knife in between the gap and she'd be down an eye at the least; if he wanted to volunteer, she wouldn't stop him. Three of theirs in the last two months (she thought it was two months) had been killed, so only her and Peter were left from their original half dozen. Since his sister had died on a routine scavenger hunt, Peter had been ironically more focussed on surviving and had saved them both more times in the last three weeks than he'd ever done. She had quickly learned that death would always come to those who walked alone and that survival, instead, thrived with trust in the right people. She wasn't so stupid to think she'd be able to survive long alone.

Leaning back from the gap he'd been peering through, Peter opened his mouth as if he was about to say something. Quickly, she clamped her fingers over his lips and could feel his frustration from his hot, angry gaze. If they had anything, it was time to spare and those literal jack-booted thugs weren't going to give up without a fight. Her and Peter had raided the kitchen, the bathroom, anywhere they could find, snatching up anything and everything worth carrying in two large rucksacks. When they discovered that place, a farmhouse set back amongst the trees, covered in vines and woodland shit, it had been a beautiful untouched goldmine so very ripe for the taking. It hadn't even occurred to her that other people had seen it until she saw a glimpse of movement through a dirty window pane, their goldmine suddenly turned into a baited trap. While safety came in stacking your decks, there were plenty of assholes would slice your throat open for a half pack of Raisin Bran. Releasing her fingers from Peter's mouth, she sat back into the crawlspace as far as she could go and motioned for him to do the same, wary of the risks they were taking.

"Boss ain't gonna be happy," one deep voice came, just barely loud enough for them both to hear. Peter's frustration at waiting seemed to dissipate as she was proved right. "Damn near picked clean over."

"Rick?" asked a second voice.

"Doubt it. We'd have heard before, if it was him. And he's too much of a pussy to try again. Scout round the woods, they can't have got far. Didn't take as much as they could have so it's either one person or a few who got interrupted. Bet my ass on the first option."

"Yeah, it will be your ass…" the second one replied again, but the gruff sound faded before she could hear the rest of the threat. The thugs and their jack boots were heading out, away into the open. She could taste the freedom on the tip of her tongue. With the world giving them a break, they could be back at base within a couple of hours and safe from human threat again.

If it was a trick, though, her and Peter were fucked and royally fucked. If it was real, then that was their shot to escape before whoever those guys were came back and raided the whole place, looking for where they were hiding. Peter jostled her a little, reaching up to the handle on the door and waiting for her go-ahead. She swallowed her tongue and put her faith in his instinct and her own new-found vigour. One or two, maybe three men they could handle together but if it was more? It would be over before it began. Still, the idea of cracking open that tin can and feasting back home was driving her to distraction and rash decisions. Drawing her knife from her belt, she looked over at Peter and gave a short, sharp nod.

The creak of that door slowly swinging out was deafening as they both waited for an attack. Nothing. Not a breath, not a shadow, not a damn sound. After another second, she took a solid step and released a breath that she didn't know was held in. There was a sweet rush of fresh air in her lungs and she looked back at Peter with that spark of victory mirrored in both of their eyes. Grabbing his free hand, she pulled him out and took another step. Razor-sharp pain stabbed into her shins, piercing through thick layers of her jeans and she fell, face first, onto solid oak flooring, her backpack snapping open at the jarring impact. Sweet breath was knocked from her as the world was thrown back into chaos from eerie silence, her own greasy red hair swimming in front of her face as she turned and looked up, crying out as the wire dug deeper into her skin. Standing over her – over them both – was some guy with a receding hairline and a gun in his hand casually trained on them. She was vaguely aware of another man to her partner's side with his boot on Peter's back, pushing him down into the floor. They were both royally fucked.

"Gotcha," muttered the thug on Peter's side smugly. Angry at not seeing the razor wire sooner, she spotted her knife just barely in reach instead and made a lunge for it with a grunt, gripping the rubber handle, life depending on it. She swiped at the legs of the asshole closest to her, barbs of wire digging and twisting deeper and deeper into her skin. The asshole dodged the swipe but couldn't move back, blocked by the wall behind him.

"Fucking bitch," he swore as she carved her mark in his calf with the end of her knife just as he kicked her wrist. "You're lucky he doesn't own a red head yet," he said almost calmly as he brought the butt of his gun down over her. There was a sickeningly hard crack as her head bounced off the wooden floor, pain exploding across her. The stolen goods, every last can, were scattered around them so far out of her reach now.

"Allie, no…" Peter cried out next to her, his voice strangled as the foot pressed in deeper; she couldn't hear anymore anyway. Her head felt heavy and light all at once, vision swam, already dazed from hunger, shock and waning adrenaline seeping out of her. Blood gushed from her scalp and pooled on the floor before she lost the battle to stay awake at the second blow.

* * *

The first things that registered were how oddly warm she was, and the strange position she was in, considering how she was lying face down on something vaguely comfy. Either she was hallucinating or they had put her on a couch and not some cold, dark ground awaiting her death. Pain soon flooded her body, pooling around her forehead, vision blurry. She couldn't understand why they would give a shit about her comfort, why she was still alive and breathing. Out of the corner of her eye, there was a slim figure stalking up and down by a window, trying to see outside. As she struggled a little to move, hands bound behind her back with what felt like zip ties, waves of nausea started to hit her. She wasn't expecting that tug to her shoulder, an arm helping her sit up straight as the nausea abated. The balding thug had pulled her up from her prone position on some moth-eaten couch, the other gun-dog nowhere to be seen. There was no sign of Peter, either, she realised and her gut sank in remorse. She should have been smarter about their escape. Should have seen the trip wire before they pulled it taut. Hell, he didn't even want to go raid the house in the first place.

"Come on, honey, wake the fuck up," the man's gruff voice barked, "I didn't hit you that hard, and you need all your faculties for the next part."

Blinking away the headache, she wiped her mouth on the shoulder of her t-shirt, tasting blood. "What's next then?" Her voice was more than a little hoarse from under-use but, God, she didn't fucking waiver a bit. "You taking our shit? Leaving us for dead?"

"No… well, you could be half right," he replied simply and went back to his watch by the window. Her eyes caught some flash of black and red as she followed her captor's gaze. "Boss might take some pity on you though, make yourself look pretty and he might keep you."

"Do me a favour and fuck off," she spat weakly, fear tingling through her spine nonetheless. Cretin. They'd stripped her of her weapons and her jacket. Nothing she owned was left except jeans and a shirt, both dirty and sweaty and cracking with dried blood. They'd even taken her shoes off her so she couldn't run far, if at all.

A thudding on the door caught her attention and Thug Two walked in, frog marching Peter behind him. Though she was relieved that her friend didn't seem to be hurt, she couldn't help but notice he had zip ties around both his wrists too, and patches of blood on his own shins. Behind them, there were more faraway voices in the hallway, one commanding and louder than the rest, and a couple of quieter ones. Thug One and Thug Two looked at each other knowingly while Peter stood next to the couch, looking like he was more nauseated than she was.

"On your knees," Thug Two commanded of them both quickly, shoving her and Peter to the floor. "And keep your mouths shut until spoken to."

It was then that her fogged-up brain clicked into place and realised where they were. Instead of dragging them out into the open as delicious Biter bait, they'd just brought them down the fucking stairs and into the living room of the farmhouse they'd raided. Some sweet irony, no doubt. Her shins stung as they made her kneel on the carpet, head forced into a bow at the barrel of a gun trained on her. Her hair hung limply on either side of her face, one half of it thickened by her own blood. Peter was by her side, his head bowed the same way and his body tense; she had to be thankful she hadn't broken her promise, that he was still alive and breathing.

"I don't take too fucking kindly to raiders, you know," came yet another voice. A richer, deeper voice with a twang that she knew all too damn well. "I had a lot riding on this fucking place when you two come along and fucked it all up."

Her eyes snapped wider in recognition the more he spoke to them. The vile taste of vomit started to curl into her throat in shock. She was going to be sick if she looked up, she knew it. There was jingling of belt buckles and crinkle of leather, and, fuck, he even had the same swagger. Her skin had already broken into goose bumps at the sound of his voice, what the hell would his face do to her? God, this was some Karmic joke that was playing out. Either that or she was dead with Lucifer himself taunting her. Keeping her head down, face shielded by her hair, she wondered how long it'd take him to realise who she was. Did he even remember her face? It had been a long damn time since... before.

"We were just hungry," Peter said next to her and she wanted to make him shut up again, to stop drawing attention to elicit sympathy that was never going to come. "Please, just… just hungry."

Her chest heaved as she dared to move her eyes up from the floor and over him, hoping that she was wrong. What caught her attention was the bat dangling by his side, the shaft wrapped in a blanket of crusted barbed wire. The man's attentions were fixed on her partner and she snapped her head back down before he could see her face.

"Hungry, huh?" he chuckled, "Fuck me, they're hungry. My heart goddamn bleeds," he laughed and Thugs One and Two chuckled too. "Heard you caught Simon good in the leg. Nearly made him piss his pants."

"She did, actually, with a Bowie knife. We took it." Thug One – Simon, she guessed – answered stoically. Shifting from knee to knee, trying to focus on the pain in her head and her legs instead of remembering the pain she got looking at his face, her head stayed down. Keep quiet, she told herself; don't rise to his bait when he sees.

"Bowie knife?" he said, interest clearly piqued. "Now where'd you get a fucking Bowie knife from, doll?" She didn't say a word, yet, trying to keep her head down low. She didn't answer. "You fucking speak when you're fucking spoken to or I'll do something you're gonna regret…" he growled threateningly. "Want your boy here to keep his ears?"

"Guy I knew," she replied quietly and quickly. "He collected them. I stole one once."

Suddenly, there was a calloused hand around her chin, yanking her face up painfully. A split second and then she saw it; it was pure recognition on his face, through the ache in her head and her blurry vision. She must have looked the same way at him. Of course it was him. She'd never forgotten the sound of his laughter and how he commanded a room no matter where it was, how he would reduce her arguments to nothing and break her defences down in a moment. She smiled in a tiny victory, glaring with pale blue eyes and trying not to laugh at the astounded expression on his face. Someone had thrown ice water over his fire but he looked like he wanted to draw blood all the same.

"Well fuck me sideways…" he muttered to himself, a slow grin appearing on his wretched face.

"Hello to you too, Negan," she replied hoarsely, trying to catch her breath. Nonchalance, indifference. He'd hate them both, wanting fire and rage. "How you been?"

"Oh I'm peachy keen, doll," he stepped back and threw her chin out of his grasp, as if touching her hurt him. "What's it now? Two years?"

"Three, I think, maybe four but who's counting winters these days?"

He laughed richly and nodded in agreement, crouching down for a moment. "Why'd this shit-streak call you Allie?"

"Because I told him to. It's my name, isn't it?" Peter's sharp gaze turned on her, shocked and confused. He was promptly ignored. "Or you forget that too?"

Negan laughed and poked the bat in her face as he stood again, using that thing to make his damn point. "Oh no, sweetheart, I fucking remember. I remember fucking everything." There was a lull and she was acutely aware of everyone's eyes on her. "I almost missed you, Mallory. Air just got a little sweeter."

She hated hearing him say her full name again. It had been years since she'd heard it spoken aloud – Allie was an easy nickname she went by now, when hearing her real name turned her back into the person she'd been before the end of the world. "What are you gonna do?" she asked, shoulders beginning to ache from where her wrists were bound together, "Just… just let Peter go. It doesn't have to be like this. Come on, Negan."

Those were the wrong words to pick; Peter was grabbed by the scruff, his head under Negan's boot before she could blink, neck threatening to snap. "Oh they don't? How fucking magnanimous of you," he spat. "Are you sure I can't turn your little boyfriend's head into a skidmark on the fucking carpet?" The bat rose up to rest on his shoulder. "You seem worried about him more than you are yourself, that's a fucking new development for you."

He towered over her and her stomach tumbled. Peter pleaded with his eyes. "What do you want from us? You already took everything," Mallory pleaded, looking up at him.

"Let us go!"

"Y'see if someone took what fucking belonged to me, I'd usually give them a choice. After, y'know, killing one of them. Still, it'd be a shame to ruin this lovely carpet..." he looked at Peter's head under his boot and smiled. "Lucky for you both, there's only two of you. And fifty of me. You ain't getting a choice to go free, no, no, no, Princess. You – and everything you own – is mine now. Either that or the aforementioned skidmark on the floor." He hovered the bat above Peter's head threateningly.

Her jaw set, teeth gritting, she gave a single nod. Her soul to the devil for their lives, for Peter's life. For his sister.

"Well then," Negan grinned and hopped over Peter's prone form to grab Mallory's arm and yank her up to her feet. "You can ride in the fucking front with me. We got a lot to catch up on, after all. I know you missed me," he winked lasciviously at her before turning to the man called Simon. "Throw the other one in the back with the rest of the shit, standard drill."

Before she could blink, the room was empty and cold. The only two were her and Negan. She didn't want to give him anymore of herself than she could but… if it meant her neck, she'd have no choice. "Negan," Mallory kept her voice to a mutter, not wanting to rile him up further. "It's just me and him. No group, no bunker. What you caught us with is all we have in the world."

"Like I said, my heart bleeds for you, Princess," Negan replied, running his hand down her arm in a tender gesture, making her skin tingle. "But I can't have you running around out around here, taking what's mine, spilling your guts out. You'll see what we got, back at The Sanctuary. Might even like it when you loosen up and look round."

She leaned away just a bit from him, needing her space from his overwhelming presence. He hadn't changed much, she'd noticed; maybe got a bit thinner, a bit leaner but just as fucking dangerous as ever. It scared her shitless. "So," she said after a moment. "You're alive, then."

"Yeah. You know, I did miss you too. Got real broken up about how we left it and everything. Should have known you'd come running back to me eventually," Negan grinned so wide and came so close again she could see the flecks of green in his eyes and sun spots behind his beard. His body was threatening to press into hers. One of his thumbs hovered over her bottom lip, in a dare. "And if you want your little boyfriend to be nice and safe in The Sanctuary you're going to do what I fucking say. Simon didn't hit you that hard, did he?" He said, his hand drifting up into her hair. Those calloused fingers pulled tenderly at her scalp, trying to see the gash through the blood. Her head swam again as pain pricked at her.

"I'm not yours anymore, I'm not your mistress anymore," Mallory finally replied, breathless. "We're not having an affair. You can take all my shit but I am not going to be your property again."

He didn't react much; not that she saw. Instead, he huffed and pulled her along by the arm, out of the living room. "I can do whatever the fuck I want."

Steered outside, the goose bumps refused to abate. Peter – sitting in the back of a pickup truck – looked back to her with weariness and anger. Negan swung his bat onto his shoulder and Mallory turned her gaze back ahead. It figured, she thought; someone was having some fun at her expense now that the one person she could truly never trust was the one she had to. They came to a dirty car in the head of a line of them, its black paint chipped and chrome rusting and splattered with dried flesh. Negan reached ahead and opened the passenger side door for her, her hands still bound behind her back.

"Fuck, Princess, was your ass always so fucking perfect?" he whispered into her ear as she managed to bundle herself into seat. "God fucking damn, I shoulda paid closer attention."

Mallory just rolled her eyes and tried not to think about those days.

It hadn't been an innocent relationship – she wasn't an innocent woman and she wasn't stupid either. Mallory had always known what kind of men she was hitching her wagon to, especially when it came to Negan. The thing was, when he looked at her – a starving man looking at a meal – she felt powerful and desired, valued for her own worth. She hadn't stolen anything since she was 21 years old and high as a kite at Georgetown; there were no more thrills as she got older and realised what an idiot she'd been to act out the fantasies of a kleptomaniac freak. Still, that craving for a rush had been lying dormant in her for years. She even thought it had died a whimpering death until Negan sauntered into her life, wearing a white t-shirt and grass-stained jeans, back in the before.

* * *

 _Another scrawl on some downloaded worksheets, another attempt at filling her time, another try at finding something she could love. Mallory tucked her hair back behind her ear as she sat on a bench seat. The entire place was empty and quiet, the last cheers coming from some practice session outside ten minutes ago. She was thankful for the emptiness._

" _Hey, fuck, whatever your name is – new girl," someone said from behind her. Mallory turned her head instantly, a red pen clamped between her lips. In the doorway of her classroom lingered a guy who was leaning casually on the jamb of the door. He wore the most imperceptible of looks, somewhere between a smile and a frown behind the scruff. His lean arms were folded across his chest, the slight sweat stains under his arms just noticeable. How long had he been there watching her, exactly? "Make sure you keep the fucking noise down, and you and me won't have a problem being nice next-door neighbours, okay?"_

" _Neighbours?" Mallory parroted, having pulled the pen from between her lips. "Ah…" a description clicked in her brain. "You must be Negan, huh?" She punctuated his name with a jab of her pen._

 _He raised his arms up in defence for a second before he wrapped them both back round his chest. "My reputation precedes me."_

" _That, and the cursing." Turning around, she motioned for him to come inside, annoyed at the way he lingered. She went about fixing the papers strewn across her work surface. His reputation did indeed precede him and she'd heard nothing good. Things about him being a bully, about how he worked the kids to death and how his adult education class was a front for illegal gambling. Those were the rumours. "I'm Mallory, or you can keep calling me new girl if you want."_

" _I fucking might. And you… do what, exactly?" he asked, eyeing her up and down as she rose from her seat. She got the feeling that he wasn't used to having someone occupy his space._

" _Uh… I teach people to play this thing…" she said, pointing to the old, creaking piano behind her, still littered with sheet music and her own scribbled notes. "I'll take a wild stab in the dark and say you teach something sports-related?"_

" _Fantasy football," he said, tilting his head as he walked in the room. "I coach during the day with the kids, weekends I get the Dads playing fantasy fucking football. And ping pong," he added as an afterthought, "When the season's over, it's ping pong."_

 _Mallory swallowed a laugh and instead bit her lip, setting the papers on one of the desks. "Ping pong and fantasy football. Hence the whistle?" she asked, pointing to the one dangling from his neck._

" _Just finished training with the brats," Negan said, tilting his wrist and looking at his watch. "Didn't think anyone would be around from the Adult Ed classes yet."_

 _Nodding softly, she looked back at her papers, "Just getting a head start before tomorrow. There's only a few people taking part, but it's a lot to pack in, teaching piano to people who don't know what treble clef is." He smiled at that, his eyes crinkling at the edges. "Might end up being noisier than you want, at least at first."_

" _I don't mind a bit of fucking noise, new girl. I just prefer something other than morons thinking they can play a piano after a single lesson."_

 _Negan was checking her out now. He wasn't even subtle, dragging his eyes up and down her body so much so that Mallory felt naked. She wasn't an idiot; there was an attractive youth about her, maybe a spark that he even saw as innocence in his eyes. Her experience with men tended to go one of two ways, and he had chosen option one: flirting. Negan had to be in his forties at least, she thought. He owned maybe a decade and a half on her, possibly more. Even if he wasn't older than her, and wasn't her co-worker – because, fuck, he was fucking hot and no, she wasn't blind – there was one giant and glaring problem currently perched on his left hand. Even wearing the most basic of clothes, with those bright grass stains, he might as well have worn gold robes. Mallory felt underdressed as she did in knee-length shorts and a sweater, even though he wasn't much better._

" _Uh huh. I can't really help you there. Mine's a beginner class so there'll be more than a few bum notes." Her hands slipped into her back pockets, trying to stand straighter. Something told her that the next six months were going to be Hell, working next to him. "It was nice to meet you anyway, Mr Negan, so-"_

" _Just Negan," he had corrected instantly. "You look like you could use a cup of shitty coffee if you're planning on being fucking trapped in here after dark. Did Jackson show you the good teacher's lounge or let you think the only one was that shithole next to the auditorium?"_

 _Mallory's brow knit in confusion, "There's another teacher's lounge?"_

 _He laughed again, creasing his eyes, and put a guiding hand on the small of her back. "Oh doll, you shouldn't listen to what that piss-stain says. Let me have the pleasure of showing you round instead."_

A jolt from the crapped-out shocks of his car shifted her body painfully. It was useless thinking about who he was before the apocalypse, since the very real Negan was sitting next to her, having zip-tied her hands behind her back and taken everything she owned. How Mallory hadn't thought about the possibility that he'd be alive still, she didn't know. He wasn't even just surviving, he was thriving from what she could see. He wasn't starving or dirty like she was, he had no injuries and was singing along to whatever 80s rock was playing in the car. He'd won an unwinnable situation because of course he had; he was Negan.

"I fucking love that air, don't you, Mal?" he grinned, the window wide open on his side. "Sweet peaches, never smelled em before the Biters come along. It's all I fucking smell now." She didn't say anything but simply sighed an exhausted sigh and let her head fall back. "Awww don't pout on me. You're lucky I got to you first. You think your boyfriend could scare off some of the nastier elements out there? Jesus fucking Christ, he couldn't scare the dust off a moth."

"He can handle the Biters, Negan, you don't know him."

"Not talking about the dead, Princess. You stick with me and my boys, I'll make sure nobody ever lays a fucking finger on you again." He spared her a long, luxurious glance.

"I bet," she bit back. Her mouth had always got her in trouble with him. Neither of them had changed that much. "How far away is this place?"

"About an hour. Then I'll get that head of yours checked out by the doc. Don't go falling asleep on me yet. Who knows what kind of trouble you got yourself into."

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. A review or comment is much appreciated (x-posted on AO3)


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Hey, wake the Hell up!"

Her eyes snapped open and she winced in pain, attempting to pull her wrists apart. Fuck; they were still bound together. The skin beneath the plastic had to be rubbed red raw too – sweaty and disgusting and painful. Maybe Negan thought she was a flight risk or something since it was the only explanation for keeping her bound up. Either that or he liked the idea of keeping her on a leash. Mallory had only shut her eyes for a moment, barely five minutes to ease the throbbing in her head and the lingering nausea. It wasn't like there was even a campsite in the distance yet, whatever this Sanctuary was that he'd bragged about. Men.

"I told you not to close your fucking eyes…"

"I heard it the first time. Trust me, nobody can sleep with you caterwauling next to them." Mallory groaned just a bit, jolted by another shock from the car bouncing on the road. "Can't you go a bit easier? You're driving like a maniac."

Negan chuckled and purposefully ran over another pothole, swerving the car just to hit it. The thing lurched and Mallory groaned out again – the grin on his face stung worse than the pothole. "God you're such a child." She rolled her shoulders and tried to make herself comfortable again, as much as she could. "You could at least cut these ties off. I'm not gonna run."

"I know, why d'you think I took your boots?" he replied, eyes trained on the empty road.

Then, from the corner of her eye in a wing mirror, Mallory saw the pick-up truck behind them take a left turn onto cleaner asphalt. It drove off, disappearing and taking Peter with it. She panicked, confused, and turned in her seat, wrenching her neck desperately to try and see. "What… what's going on? Negan, what the fuck?!" she demanded, still craning her neck to try and remember the path the truck had taken. Rage and fear bubbled in her chest and coiled in the back of her throat.

"Sit back down, Jesus Christ, you'll make yourself sick…" Negan grumbled and reached across the seat, grabbing her arm and spinning her back around. "You throw up in my fucking car and I'll leave those ties on your wrists for a week!" He stretched his neck visibly and sighed. "They're doing what we always do with strays like him, taking them back to their bunkers."

"I told you," she pleaded, looking at him with those watery blue eyes. "We don't have any-"

"Bull-fucking-shit. Bull-mother fucking-shit!" he yelled, slamming his fist down on the centre console. "You must have hit that pretty head really fucking hard to forget; I know when you're fucking lying to me, Mal. Your boyfriend's probably given you up. My men are gonna go find your love-nest hidey hole and they're gonna get all your pathetic shit and take everything back with them. Standard fucking protocol!" Her heart hammered in her chest. He had always hated liars, despised hoarders and thieves too. "What, you think because we fucked a couple times a few years ago, that I'd treat you different to anybody else?"

"You're unbelievable…" she muttered after a moment. "What more do you _want_ , huh? Maybe you can skin me and tan my ass for a throw pillow while you're at it."

"Don't fucking tempt me, doll…" he seethed.

Mallory would never forget what Negan did when he was lied to. The man had always been a sneak, one of those true-blue assholes who could twist you round his finger, let you go like a spinning top and then walk away to let you crash. God forbid she'd ever tried to have her own life – he'd infected her like a parasite and fed upon her need for him. She was tired and drained.

"If you hurt him, Negan, I swear to God-"

He slammed on the brakes hard with his booted foot, pitching her forward in the seat. He twisted violently and produced a switchblade out of seeming thin air. She didn't know where he'd stashed it or how, but it was suddenly in front of her nose and glinting in the fading sunshine, a very visceral threat. "Keep swearing to God, I fucking dare you. Go on, Mal, you'll do what?" He laughed and grinned when she didn't respond, tapping the tip of the knife on her cheek. "God's not listening to you anymore, I promise that. If he was, he wouldn't have put you in my crosshairs." His nostrils flared in anger and neck strained, the veins pulsing, breath quickened. She could tell he was holding back, tensing and evaluating. For all she knew, it was just to try and scare her.

"I just…" she struggled, her mouth suddenly dry and breath absent from her lungs. "I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to hurt anyone anymore." Mallory's lips twitched into the sad ghost of a smile. "You being here, it's just that… I don't understand why I'm up here with you and Peter's with them. It doesn't make any sense. The last time I saw you-"

"I can't even remember the last time," he said, lowering the switchblade away from her. Instead he pushed her forward and grabbed the bound bundle of her wrists behind her back, forcibly contorting her until she faced away from him, staring out the passenger side window. He was bound to slit her throat, kick her out of the car and watch her bleed to death. "What we did back then was called fucking, doll, that was it. Didn't mean shit then, and it means even less now that it's the end of the fucking world."

Mallory felt the metal press between her hands, carefully angled to avoid her flesh. With one swift slice, her wrists were free and her shoulders sagged in relief. She sighed happily and collapsed back into the car seat, her fingers wrapping around her chapped wrists. Blood started flowing blessedly back into the skin as Negan slipped the knife into the top of his pocket. Her skin stung, but the sheer happiness at not being dead far outweighed that.

There was nothing but tense silence as he righted himself and started up the heap of junk again.

"Thank you," she said quietly after a moment, the pain through her whole body seeming to dissipate at the sheer relief from not being tied up.

"Make sure I don't regret doing that," Negan replied.

Neither of them said another word to the other as he drove, the sunlight that had glinted off the knife now fading quickly. Time dragged by until Mallory saw a structure in the distance – not a campsite, not a fortified house or even just mesh gates. Her and the half dozen other people she'd started with had spent nights in nearly every type of place from court buildings to tree tops but this? It was a whole fucking factory. The perimeter stretched further than she could see, walls of steel and bars, and – fuck – there were people. The closer they got to the front gate, the more people she spotted. It was the most beautiful thing she'd seen in months. Even the few Biters around couldn't ruin the dominating awe she felt. As they drew closer, Negan flashed the headlights and the gates in front of them swung open slowly like they were welcoming the king back to his palace.

Mallory spared a glance at her captor's face and swore she could see something like pride behind those dark eyes. Those dark, voracious eyes.

* * *

 _A month went by without so much as a wave from her supposedly evil next door neighbour. His classroom wasn't going empty either – three nights out of the four that she taught classes, he did too. It was on those nights that she saw the company he kept. Every single one was like a reflection of him in one way or another. Maybe a trait he either looked for or they emulated, Mallory wasn't certain. They were older, they wore leather, they talked endlessly about sports and women; far too much to be healthy, she thought. Occasionally through the walls, she'd hear Negan yelling at them to shut the fuck up and listen to whatever he was teaching them about fantasy football. It was the only times she heard his voice and even then, she wasn't sure he was teaching them anything. He could just be playing poker for all she knew._

 _He never once complained about the honestly shitty piano playing coming from the classroom. Her dozen students had been broken up into four classes of three in each class, one class per night she taught. Progress had started ridiculously slow and every night she had headaches from the off-key missed notes and forgotten scales. Why she even bothered, she wasn't sure. Within that quiet month, three people stopped coming to her classes altogether. Mallory couldn't deny that the loss stung a bit when she realised she had the highest drop-off rate in Adult Ed history._

 _She had been on a call to one of her dropouts when Negan reared his head again, five weeks into her tenure._

" _I get that it's a lot of work but we were really making progre-" she rolled her eyes as she paced up and down the teacher's lounge. The good teacher's lounge. "Jack, it's one night a week and I'd be happy to do some extra work if you feel like you're falling behind." Mallory almost jumped at the sound of the door snapping shut; Negan didn't seem to give a damn what noise he was making when it was her quiet he was intruding on. "It's just confusing me because you were getting really good. Is it me?"_

" _Tell him to fuck off," Negan said aloud before as he bit into an apple nonchalantly._

 _Mallory waved her hand at him and slumped down into one of the chairs, playing with the end of her pendant. She had resigned herself to the fact that she'd lost another student, and another good one at that. "No, sure. I understand. Good luck." She pulled her phone from her ear and ended the call. "Asshole."_

" _You shoulda told him to fuck off," Negan repeated through a mouthful of fruit._

" _I don't get it," Mallory replied, exasperated. "That's the third one that's quit on me in the last two weeks." In truth, she'd liked that one. He was polite and sweet, always patient and listened though maybe a little flirting was distracting him. Losing Jack had cut her deeper than she expected, regardless of him being the third one. "Is it me? Am I a really crappy teacher?"_

" _Three quitters in two weeks? Yeah, probably." He said, sitting down across from her._

" _Then why am I even doing this job?" she said, slipping her pendant round and round her fingers like a magic trick. "I'm not getting anything out of it except minimum wage."_

 _He snorted derisively. "Sure, doll, that's why you're here until late every fucking night making sure you got whatever your shitty students need. Because you're not getting anything out of it." He leaned forward, crooking his finger. "Fuck the students. Do this for yourself, not them."_

 _She stopped fiddling with her pendant and glanced Negan over, confused. "How'd you know I'm here late if you're not here too? I thought I was the last one out every night."_

" _You're not. That's how I know." She noticed now, how his body sat relaxed and easy but his eyes were trained on her face. "But that's not the fucking point. You didn't take some shitty minimum wage, no-thanks job because you love the long hours and crap piano playing. So, why'd you take it?"_

 _Mallory took a moment before she answered him. He probably wouldn't understand. "For the piano." Sure enough, he looked at her with his brow crossed and confused. "I am up to my ears in debt, I can't afford to rent one, let alone go and buy one. I missed playing, missed singing along."_

 _She was sure he'd give her that cocky laugh and tease her endlessly about it. Instead he just shrugged, "So go fucking play piano then. I thought you were smart, Jesus Christ..."_

" _I am smart."_

" _No, you're not. Not if you care about whether they care. Screw them if they wanna quit. Hell, spend every fucking lesson just playing and make them sit and listen. Just do what you want to do, doll," he grinned wider, "I do." He got up from his chair and tossed the half-eaten apple into a nearby trash can, the fruit landing with a thud._

 _Mallory sat for a split second before realisation dawned on her, the images slotting into place. Within a second, she had dashed up and grabbed his arm with her lithe little fingers, just as he was halfway out the door. "Wait! Thank you," she said, looking up as he towered over her. "For the pep talk."_

 _Negan's face split into another bright, charming grin. For all the cursing, hyper masculine energy he put out, she thought he had the sweetest smile to go with those dark eyes._

" _No sweat off my back. Hopefully that'll be the end to the God-awful scales you make them do. If I have to hear_ _Für_ _Elise_ _one more fucking time, you're buying the gun I'll use to shoot the piano up."_

 _Mallory laughed and dropped her hand from his arm. "I promise. No more_ _Für_ _Elise_ _. Or scales."_

 _He winked and headed towards his classroom, whistling aimlessly, with his fists stuffed into his pockets. Maybe everyone she'd spoken to had been wrong about Negan, all those rumours about his brutal cut downs, his bullying. He'd never said anything to her like that and instead gave her the kick in the pants she needed._

 _To her surprise, as it turned out, his advice worked. For the next two weeks, her classes consisted of nothing but her playing and the students listening and watching. Mallory would say hello, sit at the piano and talked as she played. Passion flooded through her fingers onto the keys and reignited her waning want to teach. It must have been infectious because by the end of the songs she played, every single one of her leftover students begged her for another chance to try, to learn notes and songs and to play real goddamn music. For every note of the ivories she hit, her need to play more just increased and their want to feel the same thrill got bigger too. Everyone improved. Everyone listened. It was fucking magic._

 _It was a warm Friday night when it happened. The school – she thought – was empty again except for her. Having spent an hour in her class that day just playing her way through the decades, talking about how the styles changed and how players evolved, all the way up to the 21_ _st_ _century, she was tired. They'd hung on her every word, every key. Still, after every class when the school was empty and echoing, she'd sit down and practice and play and sing if the mood took her, which it often did. Mallory lost all sense of the world when she played._

 _And so, it was on that sticky Friday night, about 11pm or somewhere near it, with nothing but the janitors working on the other side of the school, that she slipped her fingers over the keys and played another song._

 _Mallory sang quietly and mostly to herself, just to keep the tempo of the song; "Guess it's true, I'm not good at a one-night stand," she took a breath and slid her eyes up from the keys for a moment. "But I still need love because I'm just a man. These nights never seem to go to plan. I don't want you to leave, will you hold my hand?" Her expression scrunched in frustration as she hit a bad note and lost her rhythm._

 _She was preparing to re-start the song when she heard his voice again. Mallory always seemed to hear him before she saw him. "You need to stop fucking singing."_

" _Am I that bad?" she asked, turning around and glancing at him. Negan had already wandered into her classroom himself, uninvited._

" _No, I just like hearing you play better. Start again. Don't sing this time."_

 _Raising her brow at him, Mallory nonetheless obeyed and swivelled back around on the bench. She had to bite her lip to keep from singing as she did. She was so lost in the song that she missed how he came to stand right beside her. Negan was always a giant figure but, somehow, he seemed even taller when he was standing over her, casting a shadow across her sheet music. His presence didn't falter her playing, not even when he slipped down and sat on the empty part of the bench. Her skin tingled where the rough edge of his jeans slid across the tender skin of her calf._

 _From not noticing him, all she could do now was notice him. She didn't miss a single note this time and he simply watched her, glance switching from her hands to her face as she did. Her heartbeat kept the rhythm of her playing, too._

 _Within minutes that felt like hours, the song was over, the air in the room reverberating around her. Mallory reached to close the book to her sheet music and found her slender wrist encircled by Negan's bigger hand. She turned to see him, confused, he caught her eyes. God. His pupils were blown wide and black, the light barely showing any of the cool toned browns of his irises. His cheeks were pink at the edges too. That scorching gaze was fixated on her face, searching for something._

 _His hand gently released her wrist and ran up her arm, his fingers skimming her flesh until they threaded through her delicate red waves. Gently, he turned her face to see him. "You know how fucking beautiful you look when you play?" he said through a ragged breath, that gaze travelling down to her chest. "You're beautiful anyway but… fuck me, Princess."_

" _Negan. You're married," Mallory warned, releasing a shaky breath._

" _I know," he said, his deep voice sounding as ragged as hers. His hand didn't move. Neither of them moved. "Thing is, I can't fucking bring myself to care."_

* * *

God, her head hurt. It really, really hurt.

The doctor at the Sanctuary – his name escaped her – wasn't half bad, she thought. He had cowered slightly when they first came in, though her brain was a little fuzzy from the concussion so it might have been in her imagination. As she tried to think about it, Mallory could have sworn that she saw a few people kneel to Negan as they walked past them. Sure, he had made her and Peter kneel back at the house as well but she didn't want to believe that he would demand it of everyone.

She had to admit that the place he'd built was astounding. People looked healthy, clean and well-fed, their hair cut and combed out to be neat. Whatever else they had she was itching to see. For now, Mallory was sat on a gurney with a man in glasses poking a little viciously at her head. The room Negan had brought her to was functional and clean but as cold and as sterile as they came. The walls were scuffed and chipped at the plaster, the colours muted and frigid as she expected. The doctor was pretty cold in demeanour too, looking at Mallory with a detachment even as she sat there with her sticky blood drying on his linoleum floor.

"Yup, that hurts, right there," she said as the man pressed his thumb around her cut. She bit back a remark about giving her some water to clean the blood off and have done with it but with one look at Negan's thunderous face behind her, she clammed up.

The doc hummed and dabbed at the gash with damp gauze, "Any nausea? Fall asleep?"

"Yes and… yes," she replied robotically, reluctant to admit that Negan had kept her from doing a Sleeping Beauty impression again in the car after he'd jostled her awake. "Not much, but yeah, nausea and tiredness."

"You're going to need stitches, three or four of them at least, and something plain to eat, water to drink…" he said. Mallory noticed him glance at Negan's stoically quiet figure. "And pain relief come tomorrow morning. I wouldn't leave her to sleep on her own, either," he muttered to the man in question. "Without a CT scan, I can't be sure there's not a hairline fracture on the skull. Better safe than sorry, if that's what you want."

"Just stitch her, carefully," Negan replied instantly, before Mallory could even form words. "Wrists?"

"Just a rinse with antiseptic should be fine. They're only abraded. And you know the wounds on her shins aren't deep." He said, her jeans sliced up the inner seam to the knee. She was more pissed about that than anything else. "Do the same, keep them clean and let them heal in the air. She'll be fine in a week, ten days at most."

"Thanks," Mallory jumped in before Negan could this time. "Just stitch me up and I can do the rest on my own."

The doctor instead looked at Negan for approval. It wasn't until he gave an acquiescing nod that the man went to get supplies to stitch up her scalp.

Waiting until they were alone together, she turned and glared a little. "Can you not let me alone for one minute?" she sighed, keeping her voice down. Somehow, she thought he'd be angry otherwise.

"No." Negan replied, "You're getting a babysitter tonight. And I am not hearing any fucking arguments from you about it, either. This is my Sanctuary, my rules. I'll get someone to show you around."

Mallory sighed and rubbed her bare temple, tired of fighting, tired of everything that had happened today. "I don't know why I'm letting you of all people boss me around again."

"I am your fucking boss," he nearly yelled at her. Negan slammed the bat he was still carrying down on the gurney next to her leg. Mallory visibly flinched, leaning away from him as much as physically possible. "In here," he continued. "Out there, in your dreams and in your nightmares. I am still your fucking boss, and you're going to listen to me and only me from now on. How many goddamn times am I going to have to say it, Mal?"

One of his broad hands placed itself on the outside of her thigh and he crouched down, crowding her space so much that Mallory had to tilt back. Her eyes widened at the angry, wild expression on his face. She'd seen so many of Negan's faces but that one had always sent a spike of hot lust through her core. Now, it was barely any different. He was just far more dangerous now than he'd been before. She was frozen, suspended between her memories of him sucking ecstasy from her tender flesh and the one of him threatening to crush her only friend's skull beneath his boot.

"I'll let you get stitched up," he muttered in a voice that was nearly a growl, wrenching himself away from her. Negan cut an imposing figure, striding out the door with that bat swinging to rest on his broad, leather-clad shoulder. He was right, she realised; he was her boss now.

Mallory let out the breath she'd been taking, her fingers coming to rest over the puncture marks his bat had made in the padding of the gurney. She had forgotten, forgotten that this Negan was the same man she knew, only he'd been let off the leash and allowed to roam free. How many men had she seen at the wrong end of his fist when they'd been together? What truly scared her, more than the violence, was how long it'd be before she'd fall back under that overwhelming spell he cast.

* * *

 _As his lips slid to kiss the top of her bare shoulder, Mallory realised that making bad decisions had become her wheelhouse. His fingers were still threaded through her hair, the air was still thick and her body was still frozen in shock and indecision._

" _I can't be with a married man," Mallory repeated, her resolve beginning to crumble as his lips inched closer to her neck. "Not again."_

" _But you want to be," he smiled smugly into her skin, everywhere that was touching her suddenly warm and rich, alive. That thumb of his started rubbing tiny circles at the base of her neck, her eyelids fluttering at the prickling sensation. "I saw how you looked at me, how you always look at me. I knew you weren't a good little girl. I was the bad decision you were always going to make." Negan scraped the strap of her tank top down with his spare hand. "And I know you're not an idiot either. You think I chase women?" he laughed. "Like fuck. They chase me."_

" _Negan, stop," Mallory protested weakly, turning her head to wrench his palm away from making those skin-tingling circles. "I can't deal with this in my life right now, not ever."_

 _He pulled his fingers from her hair and laid the curls back down as they'd been. "I'm not going to fall in love with you, Princess." He pulled her strap back up too. "I won't leave my wife for you. I'm not dating you. All I want is to do is hear you scream my name into your desk," he leant back, keeping her gaze. "I want those pretty pink lips wrapped around my dick. It's simple. Either you want me, just me, or you don't. Think about it for me. I got all the time in the world." Negan kissed her skin once more, nearly chastely, before leaving her there to her piano._

 _Her lips curled into a smile at the pictures he'd painted. No. He was right; she wasn't a good girl. She was barely a good person to begin with. The path he was leading her down wasn't going to be one she'd look upon with fondness. She'd walked it before and it was nothing but regret, shame and longing._

 _Still, those eyes would haunt her for the rest of her life. Maybe even in the next._

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. A review or comment is much appreciated (x-posted on AO3)


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"Wait right there," was all Dr No-Name had had to say before he disappeared out of sight and out of her mind. That had been ten minutes ago; ten long, silent minutes with her own thoughts and a thumping headache as company. Part of her wanted to jump out of the window and make a break for freedom but she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

Anything Mallory felt, as the minutes ticked by, became hollowed out and blunted as if she had collapsed in on herself. Her head was clean, her skin stitched, wrists pink and tingling with disinfectant, but there was still someone on her mind - Peter. No matter how much Negan kept calling him her boyfriend, Peter just wasn't. Being alone together for so long, they'd become jammed into one another's lives. God, Peter really could be an idiot sometimes but he'd saved her life more than she'd saved his. That had to count for something, didn't it? If he was gone too, not only would she be alone but she'd have nothing to show for the sacrifices they'd made either.

Without another soul inside the hospital room, the walls began to close up as she stared through the only barred window to dwindling light. The world outside was becoming bathed in darkness, apart from a few beacons of light from torches and fires on the ground. Maybe if she concentrated, Peter would simply pop up again, like the man always did. She couldn't leave him behind.

Her skin itched as her t-shirt stuck hard to her like glue, the fabric matted in a bloodied waterfall from hem to hem. Sighing in frustration, Mallory jumped down from the gurney and began rooting around the various drawers and cabinets for something to clean herself up with, sick of the smell and the feel it all. Of course, the whole situation was ridiculous. The idea of this charade being some kind of twisted test set by her ex-lover took over her mind. Sadly, it was all too likely given Negan's penchant for making her squirm and seeing her suffer. Before the Biters, people used to put the cruellest prisoners into solitary confinement and she wouldn't put it past him to do it if she crossed him again.

She was startled as the door to the med bay creaked open, and a woman she didn't know peeked her head inside. "There's a pack of wet wipes in the cabinet to your right," the woman said as she stepped into the otherwise empty room. Her voice was tinged with an accent Mal couldn't quite place. "Mallory, right? Jesus, you do look like a ghost. Sit down, would you, you're making my head ache."

"Did he send you?" Mallory replied, noticing the shabby hessian bag in her hand.

"Yes, he did." Rolling her eyes a little, the blonde woman thrust the bag at her. It contained a set of clean clothes and there were even – thank fuck – some flat heeled boots. "And you're welcome for the loaners from us. He said you were a little thinner than me… have you looked in a mirror lately?"

Uncaring about privacy, not that it mattered any longer, Mal stripped off her bloodied, tattered clothes and pulled on a pair of black pants and a long sleeve red blouse, something she'd have picked before the end of the world. It struck her as an oddity, wearing things that were remainders of a past; like clinging on to the idea of normalcy. Or maybe she just forgot what wearing nice clothes felt like. Mal turned back to the woman as she pulled on the blouse, "There a lot of clothes here?"

"More than you'd think," she replied and grabbed extra bandages, packets of pills and bottles of water from the various cabinets around them. Each item went into a small plastic tub she must have taken too. "I'm Caroline, by the way, not that you asked. I'm your babysitter for the night. Negan's orders."

Mallory paused as she pulled her hair out from the collar of the blouse. "You said 'us'?"

"Mmmhmm," Caroline murmured in reply. "I'm one of his wives. There's five of us with private rooms on the same floor. And before you ask why you're getting this treat, my guess would be that Negan's either going to get you to be his next wife or he'll have me babysitting a liability he doesn't want causing trouble."

It didn't escape her just how beautiful Caroline was. Older than herself, though, maybe a little closer to Negan in age but there was a brutal grace about the woman as she stood there in a button-down sweater and high-waisted skinny jeans. No wonder he'd chosen her as his wife. God, his wife. Wives, plural. The man could just not keep himself from indecency, could he? Dead people walking and he was a king with a harem of concubines to cater to his whims.

"Five of you…" Mal laughed sardonically, purposefully ignoring the dig. Her bare feet slid comfortably into the old boots. "Figures. Don't worry, I won't be adding to that number."

"You've been here, what, a few hours?" Caroline said with a thread of annoyance, her brow hard and judging. "You got yourself stitches, cleaned up, new clothes and shoes, my goddamn shoes…" she said, shoving the small box of supplies into Mallory's chest. "There's food and a hot shower and your boyfriend's waiting for you downstairs, and he's not even hurt. What more do you damn well want? Don't be an idiot, honey. Negan's doing you a giant favour."

Her heart stopped in her chest, not having heard anything past the word 'boyfriend'. "Peter's here? Where exactly?" Mallory demanded, rounding on Caroline with a dangerous and desperate look in her eyes.

"Shit, he's just downstairs, outside I think… wait, don't… oh fuck."

Mallory flew past Caroline without a second thought. She pelted out the room, back along the same pathway she had walked, trying to recall where exactly 'outside' was. Mal wouldn't let herself believe it until she saw him for herself, saw that he wasn't murdered for the sake of a few books and a sleeping bag. Caroline had shot after her, their heavy footfalls drawing the looks of a crowd of people. Finally, she broke back outside into the dark of night, and saw him standing around with Negan's men, their guns now missing. Peter wasn't dead, blessedly. He didn't even look injured, just as Caroline proclaimed. From what she could see, he looked dirty, clothes torn, spots of blood on his legs identical to where hers had been, but he was alive. He was alive and she could breathe again.

"PETER!" she called out and ran towards him like a child, a wide and carefree smile plastered on her face. Her boots crunched on gravel, all her pain forgotten as she flung herself into his arms.

"Not going to end well…" she heard a winded Caroline say to herself as she caught up to them.

"Allie?" Peter said, face contorting into the most beaming smile. "Shit, look at you!" he exclaimed as she tackled him, eyes dancing around to get a good look at her in the dimmed light. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Forget about me, what about you?" she said, pulling back a little as well to study his slender form. "Did they hurt you?"

"No, no. I'm sorry, I had to tell them about the bunker. They took everything out and brought it back here with us. I should've done more, should have listened to you about that house…"

Scanning his face, she reached up and pushed a curtain of dark, lank hair back to look at him properly. "Fine, okay, I believe you this time. I really thought… shit," she said, the tiny beads of tears forming in the corners of her eyes, though she forced them back. "I can't."

"It's fine." He leaned back in closer as he hugged her again, using the opportunity to mutter quickly into her ear, "I swiped your thing before they saw. Back right pocket."

A little slowly, she slipped her fingers into the back pocket of his filthy jeans and pulled out a folded and tattered picture, slipping it up the sleeve of her own shirt for safe keeping. "Thank you."

Her happiness at seeing her only friend alive and breathing again was cut short at the stab of a finger tapping on her shoulder. "You know, it really breaks my aching heart to split you two up," Negan said, his voice mocking and lyrical. "But you're going to a slumber party with my sweet Caroline, and I know he's not coming to chaperone y'all." His eyes hardened from their mirth, annoyance dawning. "So, let's hear the excuse as to why you disobeyed my direct fucking order to stay put."

Body stiffening at the touch of his hand, she nonetheless complied and pulled apart from Peter willingly. He looked just as rigid as she felt with Negan looking over between them, an unreadable mess. "I was just happy," she said, wrapping her arms around her chest to hide the photo up her sleeve. "He's my friend and he's alive."

"I knew you wouldn't fucking believe me," Negan laughed heartily and clapped Peter on the shoulder, exaggerating a crouch though Peter wasn't any more than a couple inches shorter. "Are you alright there, Petey? Can I get you something? Grape soda, maybe? How about another hug? Little freaky-deaky conjugal visit from Mal, here?" He winked and her stomach churned. "It can be arranged if you're a good little guy."

Peter didn't cower, but kept his back straight but his eyes dashing between Mallory and Negan. "I'm fine. I got her back, thanks to you. We're safe together here." There was a glint of something in his eyes that she couldn't put her finger on.

Negan burst out into laughter and straightened up again. "This one's got some goddamn cojones," he tapped his bare palm across Peter's cheek a couple of times, the sound audible. "Down boy." That vicious bat was back up, waving in Peter's face, an untold threat. The thing was bathed in blood, and Negan's eyes were wild. Mal smelled the iron tang in the air and knew it wasn't the rotten blood of the dead. "We're just getting started here. Caroline, why don't you take our little Mallory up, get something to eat before her bedtime. It's late."

Instead of moving, Mal stood frozen to the spot as Negan kept his eyes on Peter, his gaze unwavering even as he gave orders. She could hear the blood rushing around her ears, felt Caroline tugging on her arm and pulling her away. Catching Peter's attention, it took all of Mallory's will not to plead with him to just play nice, let Negan win this time. That bat still hung in the air, a reminder of his real power and how quickly everything could change. She had no doubt that the barbed wire wasn't just for show.

"Come on, let him go," Caroline said quietly, almost sympathetically. "Just… come on."

The tone of Caroline's voice made her startle out of her frozen position, and Mallory relented, letting her tug her back. How many times did she have to be separated from the only person she could trust? Gritting her teeth, she refused to give him the satisfaction of looking back, or letting him know she was scared. Instead, she made herself a promise: if Negan hurt a hair on Peter's head, she'd make sure he would regret ever meeting her.

* * *

"How was it, a night in a real bed?" Caroline asked her the next morning, depositing more clean clothes on the end of a chest of drawers. The room she inhabited was lavishly decorated and contained a sleeper sofa, potted plants, pillows, books. Mal had even found a jewellery box.

"Like sleeping on a marshmallow, like I'm gonna sink through to the floor," she replied distantly, trying to see through the window into the light of day.

"That'll take a while to pass. You'll get used to it."

Mallory turned her head to look at Caroline. "I wanna see Peter. Now."

"What are you so worried about?" she replied, sitting on the bed. "He's done nothing wrong so you don't have to be afraid. Negan's not a monster, he protects everybody who lives here." Her speech was like white noise to Mallory and she turned back to see through the window again.

"Sure, not a monster…" she muttered sarcastically. "I didn't want to come here." Resigning herself to the fact he wasn't outside, Mal poked at the clean bandage on her head idly. "No choice this time, that's what he said."

Caroline stopped whatever it was she was doing and instead locked eyes with Mallory, "He didn't give you a choice? I thought you didn't kill any one of his Saviours?"

"His what?" she said. "No, I didn't hurt anyone. I defended myself but that's it! And that asshole, he said 'you're not getting a choice'. You think I'd be here willingly, getting treated like a criminal?"

"He's never done that, he's never not given people a choice," Caroline muttered. "Not since I've known him."

"I've known him longer. That man, your fucking husband," she muttered harshly. "He's just… cruel. Goddamn insane and cruel." Mallory refused to cry anymore. She hadn't really cried since she'd put a knife through her own mother's head and wept her apologies until her body was completely numb to anymore pain this world could bring. Instead, she screwed up her fist until her fingernails bit into her palm. "If I'm not a prisoner here, if this place is free, then I want to see my friend." Her teeth were on edge, the panicked feeling rising in her throat. "I did not fight through hordes of Biters to walk into a place where I can't shit without permission."

"Fine," Caroline relented and visibly sagged in defeat. "I'll take you around the place, maybe someone's seen him," she said before leading Mallory out the door. "No running away from me this time, okay? Your boyfriend's not worth my neck."

Mallory didn't even bother to correct her as they went hunting again.

"Are you under house arrest or something?" Peter asked her when she'd found him again in the commissary; his old, dirty clothes had been replaced with new, clean ones as well. His hair wasn't lank anymore either and was instead fluffy and youthful. "I've been waiting hours for you down here."

"Honestly?" Mallory replied, sitting down at a bench with a bowl half-full of oatmeal on her tray. "I have no idea. This place? My gut doesn't like it," she shook her head and idly stirred her breakfast. "It's… I dunno." She'd managed to persuade Caroline to give her some time with him, despite her protests. Mal knew she wasn't far away from them though, hovering around like a fly around a bad smell. No doubt anything she'd overhear would get reported back to her husband.

"Maybe we just forgot what safety's meant to feel like," Peter replied, "I couldn't even sleep on the mattress they gave me, I had to put the pillow on the floor." After a moment, he looked at her pointedly. "Why'd you say your name was Allie? He called you Mallory."

She had been dreading this. "It was just… easier than hearing my full name. Not many people called me Mallory. Even fewer now." She looked back down, still playing with her food, the air thickening with tension and un-told stories. "What did he say to you, after?"

Peter went quiet himself for a moment, his eyes distant. "That I was lucky you liked me or he'd already be wiping my brains from his boots." His voice was as low as hers. "There's something between you two, right? You knew him straight away, back at that house, he called you your real name."

No matter how many times she'd thought about this conversation last night when she was attempting to sleep, Mal still found her throat stuck on the actual words. "Back… before the world went to shit…" she cleared her throat, "I taught piano in adult education. Negan taught a class next door to me." She tried to keep the memories from invading her mind, though it was pointless. All she kept seeing was Negan's smirk and his eyes, him pushing her to a limit she never knew she had. "We ended up having an affair, he was married at the time. It lasted maybe six, eight months at most. I never saw him after that," she explained quickly, conscious of people around her. "Until yesterday when it became clear that he thinks he's Jesus fucking Christ himself. Even calls those thugs 'The Saviours'."

"You had an affair?" he replied incredulously. "With that maniac? Holy Hell."

Her cheeks burned in embarrassment and she glared at him. "You asked, not my fault you don't like the answer."

"Don't like it?" he shook his head and ate some of his own oatmeal as someone walked by them, obviously eavesdropping on their conversation. "You kidding me…"

Mal swallowed her own thick mouthful and looked at him quizzically. "What?"

"This is the best thing. You know him, Al- Mallory. You must know a few of his weak spots, something juicy. Nobody here is in a better position than you are right now. He has to want to keep you happy, otherwise I'd be Biter food right now." Peter said excitedly, looking like all his Christmases had come at once. "All you have to do is use it somehow, or maybe sleep with him again. If we can just… get an advantage, it'll -"

Mallory stomped hard on his foot under the table to get him to shut up, rage coursing through her. "You shut the fuck up," she threatened, enjoying his groans of pain. "Just stop. This isn't one of those situations, and I am not getting literally back into bed with Negan," she said, screwing her face up at his name. "I am not your personal whore and I don't care what I promised Aimee, you are not pimping me out to get an extra set of fucking blankets."

"So, what, you're just gonna waste this? It's an opportunity!" He whispered harshly, incredulous even as he winced in pain. "You're gonna roll over and let him win when he could kill us at any moment."

"You don't… is there no concept of danger in your brain…" she whispered back. "The best way to keep your skull intact here is to tread the line and play by his rules. Maybe, just fucking maybe if we're lucky enough, we'll stay alive long enough for him to get bored of us and move on to some other sucker. Just do like every other person here, no goddamn waves."

Silence fell over the pair and her icy cold ire began to abate, the guilt kicking in instead. She could empathise with Peter but the idea of acting like she wanted to screw Negan again made her disgusted with herself. It'd feel as if she was playing the part he'd perfected. The idea of revisiting their affair, reliving old lives? Going backwards to go forwards was insane.

A few more tense mouthfuls later, Peter looked at her more softly. A flash back to the person she liked. "Did you love him?"

"No," she lied. "It was sex. Nothing else. Just, please, do what they tell you to do, before your dumbass ideas get us both on the wrong end of his bat."

* * *

 _He'd told her to think about it. So, she thought about it. Mal thought in minute, delicious detail about what pleasure he could wring from her body, she thought about all his sordid promises._

 _Negan knew she wasn't a wallflower or a good girl desperate to go bad to prove a point or rebel. Mallory replayed his heated come-on over and over, trying to find a way to talk herself out of it. Instead, her body betrayed her and she laid in her bed in her crappy little studio apartment, thinking about him and his hands, thinking about that wild look he left her with. A kiss on her shoulder had made her feel more than any man's lips ever had. To his credit, Negan hadn't pushed, hadn't mentioned anything about having sex with her. Twice they'd run into each other during the week, and he'd only smirked._

 _Asshole. He probably knew already that they'd end up in bed together. It was just a game of who'd break first. She refused him the satisfaction._

 _Stubbornness had led her to this point. Things that men did to get an attractive woman into bed with them were ridiculous; his wasn't the first chat-up line she'd heard from a married man and better than him had tried. Mallory wasn't ignorant of her own beauty but hopping from man to man and bed to bed never really held much of her interest. Apart from that once, but she'd been young and impetuous and had felt the consequences years after. But Negan? God, there was just something about him that both excited and scared the shit out of her. She heard him give his classes through the walls, the timbre of his voice echoing and taunting her to just give in to him. She was certain he was speaking louder on purpose to rile her._

 _But he did have a wife. A wife who might get pissed off with her husband's mistress. She had never met the woman but if someone was thinking about sleeping with her own husband, Mallory wouldn't play nice either. The risk of both heartbreak and bodily harm wasn't as enticing a prospect as the sex part. Trouble was, she kind of wanted to see what would happen. Going out in public together, the risk of getting caught, potentially losing her only job because of it; it was all scary. But that dark devil on her shoulder told her to play his game just for the thrill of it, to push his buttons like he'd pushed hers. Turnabout was fair play and she could make him suffer as much as he wanted to make her suffer too._

 _It wasn't fair. She didn't want to be this way and had tried to be a responsible, sensible adult with morals and good-standing. The universe instead laughed at her bullshit and instead had thrown her into the arms of a hot mess of a man who wanted to screw her brains out and make her feel like a goddess. She'd met a good match. When just the sound of his voice through a concrete wall made her wet, Mallory knew she'd already lost her own arguments._

 _Rarely had she stayed late at work in the week since the line got blurred. Instead she'd drink, she'd go play shitty little keyboards in clubs and bars, sing stupid karaoke with whoever she could find on a weeknight. She'd even contemplated taking a random stranger to her bed, just to fuck with Negan's mind. Probably for the better that she hadn't._

 _Mallory walked into one of her bars on a Saturday night and saw him nursing a drink, something dark, maybe Bourbon, she thought. Contemplating walking straight back out, Mallory instead took it as a sign and headed straight for the bar herself, slipping into the seat at the opposite end of the bar, two empty stools across. She had been to one dive already and wasn't nearly drunk enough, having had to deal with wasted frat boy after wasted frat boy asking her to dance and giving her their numbers. Mal even threw her friend Nicola at one of them to get him to leave her alone. Nic had said thank you before leaving with the guy. God, none of those morons was the slightest bit as interesting as the man at the bar with his lip on the rim of a whiskey glass._

 _Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Negan look at her. He didn't smirk this time; instead his gaze was all heat and desire and need, no more bullshit. She was the one smirking instead, a battle of silence to see who'd have the first move._

" _Dark beer with a whiskey chaser," she said to the bartender with a top-knot bun. Fucking hipsters. "And one for that guy in the leather, he'll have a Piña colada with a cherry on top..." she couldn't keep the laugh from her voice, imagining his face._

" _You got it."_

 _As she waited for her drinks, she turned and leant against the bar, giving him a small wave. Negan blatantly stared at her before his eyes turned back to his drink. Mal couldn't help but laugh, now seeing it as a stalemate. Good. He was stuck there for the moment and she could have some fun taunting him, a taste of his own medicine. She put her purse on the bar and leant her arm against the wood, running her fingers through her long red hair until it fell in tousled waves down her back. Slowly, her palm came to a rest at her hip and she licked her plump little bottom lip, making the motion deliberate and overt. Her fingers came up to skim at the neckline of her dress where it met her breast, one nail running down her own flesh. She'd never been more powerful._

 _His hand tightened visibly around his glass as her drink was delivered. Her red dress clung and flowed in all the right places as she wrapped her pink lips around the neck of the beer._

 _Mallory turned to look back at him and burst into laughter when he was presented with the garish cocktail, complete with a tiny umbrella and glistening red cherry. Negan looked at it like a bomb about to go off. He glared at Mallory, who simply winked in response, a victorious smile on her face as she swallowed another swig of her drink. Either he'd drink the damn cocktail or send it back. And, either way, she'd won again._

" _What's the matter?" She asked, calling across the bar to where he was. There weren't many people at that time of night; a couple of guys playing pool and laughing like braying horses and a load of middle aged housewives on a girl's night. "Don't you like coconut and pineapple?"_

" _Not in a drink," he replied with a playful smirk, but he looked goddamn pissed. "You sure you wanna play this one out, Princess? You look like you've been partying all night. Don't want you running out of steam."_

" _I'm good," she snorted, "Why aren't you at home with the little missus huh?"_

" _The Barbie went back to her play house," he laughed and swigged back his drink. "I enjoyed your little show, by the way. That tongue of yours keeps getting you into some trouble. You know how fucking painful it is to sit here with a dick as hard as steel?"_

 _He had no shame, calling out across to her for all the place to hear. He wanted it like that, then? Fine. Licking her lips again – she couldn't resist – Mallory laughed. "Steel, huh? Heard that one before, Negan."_

" _Never felt it though, have you? Or you wouldn't have waited until all your drunk little girlfriends went home before coming here…" he said, those dark eyes back in place. "You settling for me tonight?"_

 _She pulled open her purse and took out a few pieces of screwed up paper, "Three cell numbers, one home number…" she said, pulling each piece of paper open. "An email address, that's different…" she chuckled. "And my personal favourite; a post-it note with a dick drawn on it. Not exactly settling."_

" _Miiiiiighty hard to compete with the A-list of Moron City," he drawled, looking her up and down. "Did I even ask if you had a boyfriend?"_

" _No, you didn't," she smirked, stealing a sip of her drink. "I don't, but that wouldn't stop you, would it?"_

" _No," he replied with a lick of his lips, eyes on her chest and back up again. "It really wouldn't. Are you gonna call any of those pussies?"_

 _She stopped short of snorting in laughter but instead shook her head. "Fuck no. I don't want some 21-year-old. Please."_

 _The air was dense again, making it hard to breathe. "You sure about that? Someone to buy you pretty things and take you out, fuck you once a week and fall asleep on top of you? Take home to your Daddy?"_

" _As good as that sounds," Mallory said, "I'd rather not be some asshole's trophy. I want-" Before she could complete her speech, another man slid onto a stool between her and Negan, the guy immediately facing her. Ugh. She was fucking pissed off now._

" _Hi, I'm Johnny… you are fucking gorgeous," he grinned, obviously a little drunk. "Wanna ditch your Dad and come have a drink with someone your own age?"_

" _Screw off," Mallory said, annoyed that the moment had been broken, her victory lost. She stood up to leave but a rough hand grabbed her arm to stop her._

" _Just one drink, baby girl, come on, you deserve better dick than this geriatric asshole. I heard you two. No way he can get it up still."_

" _Geriatric? Fucking frat boy pencil dick motherfucker…" Negan laughed, downing his whiskey and looking pissed as all Hell. "You wanna fucking insult me, say it to my goddamn face, skinny little Mama's boy." His stool skidded out from underneath him. "You fucking pussy," he kept laughing, that dangerous look back in his eye. "Say it again. I dare you. Fucking, say it again, come on, give me a reason, give me a goddamn reason, I'm begging you."_

" _Take it outside!" called the bartender distantly._

" _Fuck man, fucking insane bastard… screw it," the pencil dick said, obviously scared of Negan and rightly too. "Some whore ain't worth a drink anyway."_

 _Unable to control herself, Mallory pulled back her fist as hard as she could and slammed it into the asshole's nose, pain shooting up her arm as quickly as his face was dripping blood. The guy fell backwards from his stool into the bar and onto the floor "I'm not anyone's whore…" she spat in anger, standing over him as she shook out her hand._

 _The whole bar was still as the guy was bent double in pain, blood gushing from his nose. Negan's shock turned into a face-splitting grin, "Fuck me, that's the hottest thing I ever saw…" he groaned and pulled Mallory tight to his body. "I kind of wanted to beat the shit out of him though. Would have made my fucking night."_

" _Don't need you to throw my punches for me," she replied, feeling the heat from him through her clothes. "Fuck me, that hurt though. Shit…" Mal groaned, looking between her knuckles and Negan's face. "We better run before they call the cops."_

 _Taking her battered hand, he tugged her across the room, both laughing their heads off._

* * *

Clunking of footsteps and the scrape of metal on concrete brought Mallory out of her reverie, her food half-eaten and stone cold. Her stomach churned as she looked around for where that reverberating sound was coming from. Suddenly, she noticed how every other person around them had fallen silent and was kneeling on the floor.

She looked up and saw him on his platform, a literal balcony overlooking all he surveyed. Negan trailed that bat behind him and locked eyes on the her and Peter, them standing out like sore thumbs among all the others offering him succour. Her own advice to Peter last night called out to her. Make Negan happy, play his game, do what he wants. Obey. Beside her, her friend looked at her pointedly before kneeling at Negan's imposing figure.

"Good mooooooorning, motherfuckers!" he called out across his people. Mallory just stared, unable to move. She just couldn't kneel to him again. "Well looky here. Seems we got us a big beautiful peach, ripe and ready for the plucking, don't we?" His laughter rang out, bat swinging back to its home on his shoulder. "This fucking gorgeous piece of red-headed firecracker y'all see standing up is mine. You see, I used to eat that pussy out raw back in the day, so I'm calling dibs on her now."

All eyes turned to look at her, if only for a second. Her anger snapped and bubbled up, her fist clenched, tongue ready to spit fire. She didn't care if he killed her, this was worse than death. He was humiliating her for his own fun. He didn't want her, he just didn't want anyone else to even like her.

"If I catch one single little finger on her skin, well, I'll break that finger off. My beautiful, vicious little girl here'll get let off the leash…" he swung out the bat again for emphasis. "And she'll be drinking all night long." Negan caught Mal's eye again, tongue flicking out over his bottom lip as he pressed a kiss to his weapon. "Lucille's gonna drink you up if you touch my ripe little peach. Now, get the fuck back to fucking work!"

They all immediately obeyed, every single person looking at her with a mix of awe, jealousy, disgust. He'd just ostracised her completely; even if he let her live, she'd never be just another person again. Peter was looking at her pointedly but she couldn't stop glaring at the monster above them both. Negan crooked a finger at Mallory, beckoning her to go to him like a child. That sadistic little smirk was back on his face. He was always going to win.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. A review or comment is much appreciated (x-posted on AO3)


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

She stung at feeling everyone looking at her as she walked up the iron stairs, Simon leading the way. It wouldn't have mattered to Mallory a day or two ago, but somehow the fact that strangers knew the kind of man she'd had an affair with tainted her. They knew his cruelty, his selfishness and violence. Like it or not, she was stuck in a place encapsulated by the power Negan possessed over the world she lived in. He had been making life a chaotic mess for a long damn time and he was still somehow able to make it worse and worse and worse still. No matter how she could hurt him, exact revenge, Mal knew it would come to nothing. The advice she'd given to Peter would have to stand; play his game and survive it.

Simon led her to a door at the top of the stairs, one without glass and only a keyhole to let in the light. A sinking feeling in her gut churned again about the threat of solitary confinement and she had to tell herself not to show that wrenching fear. Instead of producing a key, Simon rapped his knuckles on the door twice before opening it, shooting her a look between a scowl and a sick smile. Mal was glad she'd managed to take a good chunk out of him at least once in her life, no matter the aggravation it had brought her.

Inside the room was what must have been Negan's office. The man himself sat behind a huge desk, his feet up on the wood and his hands clasped in his lap. He owned the room, the building, the people and Mallory. "There you are, Princess. You like the show?" Negan said as Simon thrust her inside and slammed the door, leaving her alone with the King.

"Can't say I did, no," she bit back and walked up to the front of his desk, refusing to take one of the seats. His office was even more lavish than Caroline's bedroom had been. It reminded her too much of his old home; she half expected his framed wedding photos to be up on the walls, coffee brewing in the kitchen, Lucille's scarves on the couch where they had fucked. The man had taste that ran into hotel-level opulence, a kind of style that everyone pretended to like. "You called dibs on me," Mal said, risking a tiny laugh for the sake of it. "It was a funny joke. Boy people hate me now, you should have seen their faces."

"I did see." He only smiled wider. That bat was on top of his desk in front of her, too, almost gleaming and begging to be picked up and swung at something malleable – maybe his head if she was lucky. "Not a half-bad joke, right? One of my better ones." Negan rolled his tongue over his lips. "You eat yet? We make a nice oatmeal, I can personally recommend it."

"It was a little thin," she replied, starting to fall back into that ease with him as she always did. "And salty for my taste, I prefer it sweeter."

His eyes sparked at her defiance, a look she knew too well. "You still got that sweet tooth. I like that in a woman."

"You know, I'd be grateful if we could cut out the bullshit and you tell me what you want this time," she asked, hoping to side-step his charade.

"Aww, but the bullshit's my favourite part, come on, play along. I know you're pissed the fuck off after what I just did out there. And, basically, everything I've done so far." Negan laughed. He suddenly sprung from behind his desk, running his knuckles over the slight scruff on his chin. The gesture ghosted with the mirth in his eyes as he came to stand right in front of her. "Okay, fine, I apologise with all my heart. Why don't you hit me with your best right hook, Princess, it'll make you feel better. Won't even fucking flinch, I promise. One free shot for uh… let's call it pay back." She didn't move, looking at him with confusion at the offer. "Come on, you know how many people would kill for that? I'm even tempted to let you take a swing at me with Lucille over there," he gestured behind him.

"Lucille," Mal said, trying to ignore the urge to take him up on his offer of retribution. "You named that… that thing after your wife?" A chuckle escaped her at the absurdity. "First wife, sorry, I forgot about the others you're keeping like chickens."

"No need to be jealous. I'll call the next deadly weapon Mallory if it'll make you happy. Lucille's not the only one who can be a fucking bitch. I bet that head of yours is hurting you real bad this morning, huh?" He leaned in a little as she stood there with her arms crossed under her chest. Negan reached up and cupped her pink cheek with his palm; there was an almost-real look of concern on his face.

Mallory tried to ignore everything in her body as he touched her tenderly; her skin tingled where his callouses were rough, her heart thumped a faster beat in time with his, she could map a path of all the colourful flecks in his irises, right to the edge. She didn't flinch at his hand, she didn't back away or lean in. "I'm fine," she replied. He couldn't affect her anymore. "Just… peachy keen, Negan." Mal hated herself as soon as she said the phrase.

His lips cracked in a smirk, "Fucking fuckedy fuck," biting his own lip, he ran a thumb under hers with his eyes getting darker by the second. "My sweet Georgia peach, there she is," he laughed and her hands trembled even though her arms were still crossed. "You remember how you got that particular nickname, don't you? Course you fucking do. How could either of us forget. You still taste like that?"

He was so close to her now, another step and he'd be pressed up to her body like he was the first time, not a lick of light between them. "How the fuck would I know?" She was half scared and half… not. "And you're not getting a taste of me again, so you can get that thought out of your head. Go taste one of your wives."

Negan pouted, his hand slipping to hold the back of her head in a gentle caress that made her eyes widen slightly. "Don't be like that, I was so nice to you and everything, saving your life from the Biters. Don't be so fucking rude to me." His line of sight slid down between them, over her body, and ran back up again. "You're forgetting that you can't hide shit from me, Mallory, you never could. I know parts of you nobody else is ever gonna see." He gripped her hair and Mal visibly shuddered, her breath catching as she stood resolute and unbending. She hated herself. "I know when you're lying, I know when you're in pain, know when I got you so close to the edge that it's driving you crazy trying not to snap. I know you, sweet peach, fucking intimately."

"So what if you know me," she rasped out, ignoring the raggedness of her own voice. "You think I'm going to forget all you did to me and just slide back under your command like nothing changed? I lived under those rules for months, for longer than any of them out there. I'm not yours, Negan, and I'm not anyone else's either. No matter what you're telling them out there, you're not laying a finger on me. You're a monster, not a man."

"I know," he nodded almost sagely, though his eyes were still burning a hole into her. "And what the fuck does that make you, Mallory? Wetting your panties for a monster like me? I know you like it when-"

"Fuck you!" she hissed. He gripped her hair harder in retaliation and angled her head up. Her arms shot out to grab his jacket, keep him at an arm's length, keep him from making another step. She wasn't sure if she could stop herself, not when her body was betraying her head. "Take your hands off me, Negan, I'm not playing that game."

He looked wild and composed at the same time, the smallest twitches of his body amplified at such close quarters. "But you liked this game, you liked it rough, you liked it when I made it hurt. You begged me for more, to make it last longer."

"Negan-"

"Fuck, yes," He licked his lip again, expression setting to stone. "Fucking loved it when you said my name like that. My bad girl."

Mallory snapped and swung her fist upwards, socking him in the jaw as she grunted out her anger and frustration. She didn't feel a single ounce of pain as he staggered backwards, her head dropping out of his grasp, freeing her completely. As her adrenaline surged, muscles twitched and tightened in readiness to flee, that fear bubbled in her stomach; the only weapon was the baseball bat behind him and she was so fucking fucked. He was going to kill her.

Negan shook his head out and looked at her as he righted himself, shaking out the punch from his jaw. "Fuck me, that hurt. I forgot how hard you hit when you're pissed off." He pushed the heel of his hand up into his jaw until there was a faint click. "That wasn't bad, just go for the throat next time." Her confused look must have been obvious because he simply rolled his eyes. "You needed to get that out of your system. Now that it is, I need to talk to normal, not-so-pissed-off Mallory."

The depth of his manipulation hit her like a freight train. "Are you fucking kidding me?" She said incredulously, trying not to let her mouth gape open. "What the Hell is wrong with you, you fucking creepy ass psychopath."

Negan ignored her, instead just leaning back to perch on the edge of his desk. "Just sit the fuck down. I let you get one shot at me and that's all you're damn well getting." He was suddenly so cold and so distant, the eyes that were lust-blown and dark a minute before were now icy and unforgiving. That part of his personality didn't rear its head much when they were together, but it was just as terrifying as it had always been. Those moments when she couldn't tell what he wanted or what he was thinking or going to do. Those were moments when he'd kiss her one second, then kick her out and not talk to her for a week the next.

There was only one victory she had in her pocket; she thought about the picture she'd hidden under the marshmallow mattress as she sat down in one of his chairs. He didn't know everything about her and what had happened after he threw her under the bus. She'd take her delight in telling it to him one day, one day when he was handcuffed to something and she was the psychopath swinging Lucille.

"Is that why you called me up here?" Mallory asked a little more measured, a little more calmly. "To let me vent at how pissed off I am?"

"No, I got the idea when you walked in here. I could see it in your eyes how you wanted to push me out the window. I thought a punch would be a good fucking compromise. I am capable of compromise."

Mallory put her hands in her lap as she sat back in the chair. She couldn't deny it. "I wanted to knee you in the balls, actually. I think it would have been more appropriate given that you've basically put a scarlet letter on me now."

"Oh, no, you did that yourself, Princess, you can't run away from your past," he said, pointing his finger at her. "And I am not letting you knee me in the balls."

"It would have been more fun for me, though," Mal swallowed back her tongue from pushing him too far. There was always a limit.

He cracked his jaw again, "Jesus you got cruel," he muttered. She didn't reply. "Now we got that out of our fucking systems, I have a little surprise for you."

"A surprise?" she asked incredulously. "What, you get me my bowie knife back? I kind of miss it."

He didn't flinch either. "Nope. Better than a bowie knife. Does come with a caveat but you're gonna fucking love this one, Princess. I been keeping this under my belt for a long damn time."

Negan strode towards a door that Mallory had missed before, another plain one with a metal plated key hole. He produced a key from one of his pockets and unlocked it, holding it open. "Well, come inside. See what I got you. I'm curious."

Tentatively, Mallory got up from the chair and walked past him, through yet another open door. It was, as it turned out, his bedroom. The red silk sheets on his bed didn't catch her eye though. Oh no, it wasn't his bed or his furniture or Lucille's mantle. It was the fucking piano pushed up against the wall, resting under a window. It was shiny, sleek and black, not a speck of dust or dirt covering any of the keys. It was beautiful. The most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in her life.

Mallory broke down in instant tears. They streamed down her sunken cheeks, her small hand immediately stroking the beautiful black gloss as she strode towards it. Her skin glided along the surface. She didn't take a second thought and sat down on the bench seat, her heart thumping harder than it had a moment before. Negan stood, forgotten, behind her. Mallory hesitated pressing the keys, the lump in her throat, trying hard to think about what was happening, why she was crying at seeing something she'd longed for on the hardest of nights when they'd lost more people, when they'd seen more death. She couldn't think.

"I…" she choked out, still uncertain as to whether she should press down on even a single key. Her heart and her head fought, her hands tried to remember what it was like to just be a pianist and not a survivor, not a warrior or a hunter. "How?"

"Boys found it in a place not so far away, on a, uh, hilltop," his voice was oddly level and even, almost sympathetic. "Soon as I saw that thing, it made me think of you," he admitted. Negan was standing a few feet behind her, simply observing. "I had the boys haul it up, and here it's been ever since. You like it?"

Her voice stuck in her throat. Why would he do something so… unlike him? Her image of Negan with that baseball bat covered in human blood, the Negan who had ruined her life, ruined her family, it didn't equate with the version of him who would take a piano just because it reminded him of her. He hadn't even known she was alive, he couldn't have.

"Why?" she asked, still crying animal tears.

"I honestly have no fucking clue," he said, still just standing there. "I never played it, never touched it. It's going to fucking waste sitting there and I thought, since you're here now, you could play like you used to."

"Play? For you?"

He gave her a short nod. "Yes. You're going to play songs for me, Mallory. And you're going to teach Caroline how to play too. She's always wanted to get in here and play it."

Mal couldn't speak and looked back at the piano, seeing her face reflected in the gloss. She saw the tears tracking down her face as she pressed a few of the keys, playing scales tentatively. Her heart swelled and she could feel her old self slip back into place like a comfortable overcoat, complete with the man she'd once thought she'd loved standing behind her, holding her hostage. It was the cruellest torture he'd ever inflicted.

"I don't know if I remember," she muttered as she finished her scales. "It's… it's been a long time since I played a song."

"Thought you wanted to cut out the bullshit?" he murmured and unthreaded the red scarf from around his neck, taking steps towards her. Carefully, tender once more, he tilted her chin and wiped away the tears that were still streaming down her cheeks. "Believe it or not, I had the same reaction when we found a fucking ping pong table," he laughed a more human laugh. "And carpet, a running faucet. The stupidest shit you ever seen, Mal, carpet between my bare goddamn toes and I wanted to cry like a little kid."

"Hard to imagine," she said, pulling her chin away from his touch and wiping her own tears away. "I never saw you cry, not even about Lucille."

Negan's eye twitched just a little and he shrugged. "End of the world did something after all, brought about miracles."

Mallory's head throbbed once more as her tears started to abate, the shock at seeing a piano again fading into simple confusion. What games he played, what he wanted; they remained a mystery. He sounded sincere but the man was a master at getting end results, not giving a fuck about the route he took.

"Okay. Lay out your terms," she said, putting her emotion in a box. "What exactly do you want? And what do I get in return?"

"Down to business, huh?" he smiled. "I admire that." Negan kneeled in front of her then and her eyes widened. "You play for me and me only, you come up here whenever I send for you. You drop it all, in the middle of the night, at breakfast. No questions, you just come up here and play those pretty songs for me. You teach Caroline how to play, long as it takes…" he said, looking into her eyes. "In return, you get extra points for food, for clothes, all that girly shit you miss."

Mallory shook her head, "No. It's not enough." To be at his beck and call, to be his personal anything required more reward. "You're a man of your word still, aren't you? Would you make me a promise to not hurt Peter or have him hurt by anyone? To just leave him alone?"

Negan seemed to consider it, licking his lip. "Only if you leave him alone too, Princess. Don't talk to him, send him messages. If I find out you been trying, I'll take one of his fingers as my trophy. Is that a deal?"

He extended his hand. It hung there in the air.

"Can I get my bowie knife back too?" she asked sarcastically.

"Don't push your luck, Princess," Negan growled. "Unless you got more fucking demands, have we come to an agreement?"

After a moment, she remembered her promise to Peter's sister, how she swore she'd look after him. A deal with the Devil himself in exchange for Peter's protection? It might cost her sanity but that was hanging by a thread anyway.

Mal slid her hand out and shook Negan's. "I guess that's a deal."

* * *

" _Be careful, Princess," he said as he cradled her hand tenderly, running a thumb along her knuckles. "You might have broken something."_

" _I did," Mal said, letting him lower it into a bowl of ice water. "I broke that asshole's nose."_

 _He laughed a rich laugh. Both were a little drunk, running on the fumes of the night. "Fuck yeah you did. He deserved it, though, fucking touching you like that. Nothing pisses me off more than an asshole who touches a girl when she doesn't wanna be touched."_

 _They sat on the couch in her crappy little studio apartment, two in the morning, maybe closer to three, she wasn't sure. Her head was washing over with dregs of adrenaline and alcohol; how they'd ended up back at her place, she wasn't sure. The cab ride had mostly been them laughing together about the pencil dick at the bar and how his face had been more solid than she'd expected. Mal had invited Negan in, knowing exactly where it'd lead if she wanted it to. He'd even told her to treat her swelling hand, insisting that the ice water soothe the burning – he wasn't exactly helping the other burn she was feeling._

" _Not the first time I had to defend myself like that," she said, wincing as she flexed her hand under the water. "Happens more often than you'd think. You want a beer?" she asked the last part idly, needing something to soothe the dryness of her throat. "Or I have wine if you want?"_

" _You stay there," he ordered, getting up from the couch. "Just keep that hand still. I'll get us a drink."_

 _His jacket was lying across one of her chairs, her shoes off and kicked under the coffee table. Negan wasn't as imposing a figure without the leather jacket she thought; he had a slender frame and narrower hips but there remained a prepossessing air of strength and command whenever he walked into a room. She didn't know why he'd shown an interest in her particularly – the English teacher down the next hall was blonde and stunning as far as Mallory was concerned – when he obviously had no qualms about fidelity. Whether this would be a one night stand or a longer-term thing, though, she wasn't sure, but she had to find out._

" _Here," he said, suddenly dangling a bottle of cold beer in front of her face. "Drink."_

 _Mal did as he asked and took a long swig, watching him do the same as he sat down next to her. "I have to uh… ask you something. Before this becomes whatever it's going to be." She took another quick swig. "Is this a one nighter?" She looked at him, never soberer. "Or is this a thing where I'm like your mistress?"_

 _Negan – to her surprised – snorted in laughter. "Holy shit, you get right down to brass tacks huh?" He leant back and laid his arm across the back of the couch, turning sideways to look at her. "Princess, you're not a one nighter type of woman. I chased a few girls in my time but – goddamn it – I never chased after someone as much as I have you." His fingers casually tucked her hair behind her ear, trailing through the fallen curl. "I have done some interesting things to get your interest, not gonna lie about that."_

" _Things?" she said, crooking a curious eyebrow at him. "What things?"_

 _She could have sworn he'd looked at her sheepishly if she thought he was capable of it. Instead, he laughed and looked away, down at the beer bottle he held in his lap. "That student of yours, that guy Jack who quit?" Negan chuckled and had the gall to look in her eyes. "He didn't uh… quit, exactly. I gently nudged him towards quitting after one of your classes and stuffed a hundred bucks in his hand for good measure…" He swigged from his beer again. "I saw him flirting with you at that fucking piano and, shit, I never been so fucking jealous in all my life. I wanted to rip his head off, how he made you laugh. So, I stopped him by his car and made him a little deal. Had to make some threats but he took the money in the end so it worked out pretty well."_

" _You did what…" she muttered, blinking as her anger mounted. "You… paid off one of my students to not come back?" Mal remembered how that quitter had made her feel, made her question it all. Was that why Negan had followed her into the staff room? To make sure Jack had really quit? "Wait, I had three people drop out on me, all of them…all of them were guys. How many others did you pay off?"_

 _The bastard winked at her. "Ah ha, you, you caught me. First one actually quit, that's on you, but the second guy, whatever the fuck his name was-"_

" _Evan?"_

" _Yeah, that guy. Pretty boy, young, I saw you fawning over him and his fucking biceps. He had to go. Didn't take much. I was willing to go up to a hundred and he only took fifty. Point is, neither of them were good enough for you. Fuckboys, right? I saved you a six-month relationship, crappy sex and a lot of heartbreak, Princess. You should thank me, they were two-pump chumps at best."_

 _Unblinking, she wrenched her right hand from the ice water and slapped him as hard as she could. The water had tipped all over the floor, ice scattered wide. A pain seared through her, more than she'd probably inflicted, and she cradled her own hand, panting for breath. "You motherfucking cunting fuck…"_

" _I deserved that, probably," he muttered. "But my point still fucking stands. You are making me work harder than anyone ever made me work for it. I am not giving up until you tell me a good, solid 'no'. So, tell me no, Mallory. Without an excuse, that I'm a cheating bastard, that I'm married, that I did shit things to get here. Just tell me no because you don't want me and that'll be it. No more chasing, no more scaring guys off you."_

 _Her mouth fell open as if to say something but the words stuck like glue in her throat. Why couldn't she tell him no? Why was she so willing to put up with the games, the lying, the manipulation?_

 _She took another breath and flexed her sore right hand, wondering whether the pain would be worth hitting him again. "You're a jackass."_

" _I know," he replied earnestly. He plucked her beer from her other hand and put it next to his on the coffee table._

" _You're not going to make anyone else quit on me or I'll cut something precious off your body."_

" _Boy scout's honour, doll," he bit back with a chuckle._

 _She began to laugh, shaking her head slightly. "I must be the dumbest person in the entire world to even be considering this."_

" _Might just be." He leaned in closer to her, licking his bottom lip. "I promise that I'll make up whatever I did to you. Repeatedly, if that's what you want."_

" _Yeah, you better had. That fucking hurt."_

 _Negan grinned widely again and pulled her head towards his, closing the gap between them both. He kissed her roughly, rougher than she thought he'd be for a first time but Mal knew that Negan wasn't a man who liked decorum and romance. This wasn't going to be a love story, or some trashy sweetheart affair. She kissed him back with as much fire and passion as he showed her, his hands pressing against the back of her head like he was scared she'd change her mind and hit him again instead. Mal caught her breath between heated kisses, her brain unfocussed as he pressed her backwards into her couch, snarling a little when her nails raked through his hair._

" _Fuck," Negan swore, looking down at her. Her lips felt swollen and tender, skin lighting up warm as her cheeks flushed. Her hand didn't even sting anymore. "Just look at you. Fucking beautiful."_

 _Her tiny couch really wasn't the most ideal spot but Mal had neither the heart nor the want to move from under him, not when he was pinning her down and looking at her like that, like a starving man who'd got his first sip of water. His eyes had gone back to being dark and dangerous, a threat and a promise. He was just looking at her, his knees pressing into the couch cushions, one hand on the back of the thing and another still cradling her head. He wouldn't move and she couldn't._

" _Negan?" she asked softly._

" _You are not a one night woman, Mallory," he said after a second, his jaw set. A rough palm skirted her thigh, making her leg curl around his waist. She shuddered in response to his man-handling. "I meant what I said. This is not going to be love, I ain't going to take you out on dates and bring you fucking roses. But you're still mine," he almost growled, making her gasp as he reached between them and cupped her over her panties. "No boyfriends, no dates, no other men. You're mine and I'll make you come harder and longer and fucking better than any guy you ever took to bed..."_

 _Fingers pressed in slightly and Mal bit her lip to keep from giving him the moan of pleasure he wanted from her. He'd promised to make it up to her. "That's a lot to give up," she replied, pressing her hips up to meet his hand instead. Her own hands were planted on his shoulders, almost unwilling to move without his say-so. "You going to make it worth my while? Put your money where your mouth is?"_

 _Negan's face split into a grin a mile wide as he looked down at her. "Princess, I can put better things on my mouth if you want me to."_

 _Her hands flexed on his shoulders, bunching the material of his t-shirt as she did. He had to feel the heat and wetness between her legs, even over the fabric of her underwear. The asshole, fucking bastard jerk. He'd make her dreams of good sex come true. Mal's hands moved from his shoulders until her arms were wrapped around his torso, tugging him back down. Negan chuckled before leaning in to kiss her again, his own little victory won in getting her to bend as much as he'd bent._

 _Mallory met him touch for touch and kiss for kiss; his teeth scraped at her lip as her nails raked across the small of his back. Negan pulled her legs open and wrapped the other around his waist as she canted her hips up to meet the hardness in his crotch._

 _Her skin was fire and ice wherever his fingers grazed, wherever his lips and teeth kissed and scraped. And – God – he was burning passion in a lean muscled body; he tugged at her hair like before, angling her head back to get at the hollow of her throat before tearing her dress in a manic rush to get to her skin._

" _I bet you taste fucking sweet," he murmured raggedly against her, his face buried in between her breasts. He looked just as much of a mess as Mallory felt, his voice rough and raw, the filth spewing from him like water out of a burst hydrant. "Been wanting a lick of your pussy for weeks. Fuck it," he suddenly yanked her down the couch a little so she was lying flat on her back, her dress open at the top and rucked up at the bottom, goddamn near bare for him to see. She knew it wouldn't be enough. "You want that, Princess? You want me to make you come on my face before I fuck you?" he licked his lips, like he was anticipating finally getting his licks in._

" _Yes," Mallory panted, lifting her hips as he pulled at her underwear. "Come on, Negan, make me come."_

 _His eyes widened as he looked at her, that heat and fire from top to bottom. "Keep saying my name like that… I ain't a fucking 21-year-old anymore."_

" _Don't want one," she replied, voice hoarse. "Remember?"_

 _He had to lean back to get her panties off her legs but the look of pure and honest need in his eyes when he saw her bare was worth the acrobatics. Mallory could feel how wet she was for him and refused to be embarrassed like most girls her age would be. She liked sex. She loved good sex._

 _For once, he didn't have a word to say. Instead, he just pulled her pale thighs further apart and lowered his face between them. Mallory moaned as he licked her like he promised, tongue hot and willing. His tongue ran over the innermost creases of her thighs until his lips kissed her clit in a hot, sweet gesture. Her body jerked, muscles contracted at his seasoned touch._

" _Ah, fuck, Negan," she grunted out, her fingers threading through his hair to hold him in place. "Yes, God, please…"_

 _She felt a couple of fingers, thick and cool, push tenderly inside her as a reward. Her eyes widened as he crooked both fingers up and swirled his tongue teasingly around her tender pink skin. Mallory's hips thrust upwards into him, riding his fingers and tongue as he built her up and up. He was going to drive her insane with all this genteelness, the teasing licks and barely moving fingers._

 _Negan leant back for breath with a groan, licking his wet lips. He looked strained, veins standing up from his arms and breathing haphazardly – if he thought she was beautiful, he needed to look in a mirror. "So fucking sweet, so fucking tight…" he growled, animalistic, and pumped his fingers with purpose. Her vision prickled, fingers slipping around his wrist so she could fuck herself on his hand, deciding that she needed more than he was willing to give. "That's fucking hot, goddamn," he licked his lips, staring at where his digits disappeared inside her body. "You want more, come on and take it…"_

" _Yes…" she exclaimed, her voice just as strained as she worked herself up. His fingers twisted and she cried out, whimpering just a bit. "Negan, please, you promised…" she whined, a spoiled brat wanting more._

" _Please what?" he demanded roughly, reaching up to grip her chin._

" _No more teasing. You said you'd make me come. I want to come."_

 _He had the balls to laugh as his head slid back down to her cunt, her chin released from his grip. "You come when I say, Princess. You're not allowed to yet."_

 _Whining as his fingers stilled, she felt like slapping him for a whole other reason. Her body wasn't used to prolonging pleasure, exactly. Her own fingers knew the spots that felt good and hit them hard and fast. He was doing this to see her suffer, hear her beg him, call out his name._

" _Not allowed…" she breathed as he pulled her hand from his wrist, using his fingers to stretch her open until she burned a little. "FUCK!"_

 _Mallory would never forget the sight of him as she looked down her body – the hand inside her pulled out and laid flat on her belly to keep her pinned down, his dark eyes focussed entirely on how she reacted as he ate her. Her cunt contracted around emptiness, longing to be filled and fucked. He'd turned her into a monster who wouldn't stop until she got what she wanted and she wanted nothing more than for him to fuck her as deep as he could get. It infuriated her that Negan refused to give her what she wanted yet, despite his professing to make it up to her, the fucking liar. She'd give back as good as she'd get next time he wasn't expecting it._

" _You ready, Princess?" he asked, his own voice as hoarse as hers was. "Cos I need you to fucking come right now so I can fuck you into this shitty fucking couch."_

" _Yes, yes," she begged, her hands gripping the cushions. "Please, Negan."_

" _That's my girl…" he grinned and shoved three fingers into her, almost vicious, immediately finding his target and hitting it hard. "Come for me…" Negan groaned before he sucked hard on her clit, tongue flicking out just a little._

 _Mallory's body imploded as she came. Her cunt tightened around his thick fingers, clamping down on him as pleasure bolted down her spine and pooled between her legs. She was a fucking mess, a mess of swollen skin and fingerprint bruises on her thighs. She hadn't even noticed him gripping her like that, hadn't noticed how he watched her intently, fingers moving her through it all like magic._

 _While Mal sagged back against the couch, her body still catching up, he pitched forwards and kissed her with vigour, making her taste herself on his tongue. His hands were everywhere, tearing at her dress to get more of her exposed, groping her roughly. Her teeth ran over his lip, intoxicated by his lust for her. Her hands scrabbled for his pants and the ridiculous belt buckles he had until finally she got his cock in her hand._

 _It was Negan's turn to groan out, his eyes ever more dark and ever more dangerous. "Peaches," he said as she stared between his crotch and his face._

 _She chuckled and nodded, "Peaches?"_

" _You fucking taste like peaches." He shoved his own pants down enough as she pumped his cock a little, eager to see just how he'd feel inside her. Negan pulled a condom from his back pocket, ripping the thing open like a maniac before he rolled it on. She was grateful he'd had some forethought at least and watching him handle himself wasn't a bad sight either._

" _Take your shirt off," she ordered, her own dress a band around most of her stomach._

" _Yes ma'am…." he laughed and did as she asked, pulling his shirt up and off his body until she got her look at him._

 _Mallory ran her fingers through his chest hair, peeking at his inky-black tattoos before he covered her form with his again, not an inch separating them. "You call me beautiful," she muttered as he sucked wildly on her neck, aligning their bodies. "But look at yourself. No wonder you're such a cocky bastard."_

" _Not gonna lie," he laughed as he sank his cock inside her without warning, the sudden burn making her breath hitch. He wasn't huge but – God – he stretched her just nicely, pushing up and bottoming out to hit her clit too. "I know what I am, Princess," he groaned in pleasure alongside her as he thrust deep and hard. "I know."_

 _He thrust more and more, his face buried into her neck and one hand on her breast, making sure she was overwhelmed by the sensations. Somehow, she was pinned under him and could only move if he allowed her to, her hips canting up when he pulled out. Negan swore into her skin as she clenched around him, his head snapping up._

" _You fucking did that on purpose," he growled and pounded her harder, his hand on her breast clamping down on her wrist instead, wrenching it up to her head. "You gonna play that game?"_

 _Mallory whimpered and gasped as he pistoned his hips, the sounds of wet slapping filthy, her body beading in sweat as her orgasm mounted. Giddy thrills went down her, adrenaline coursing. He liked it rough, giving it rough, she could feel it in his grip and his unrelenting hips. "Yes…" she gasped out, breath stolen._

 _He doubled his efforts again and she cursed aloud. "You're gonna pay for it," he grunted, losing control as he fucked her. "One day I'm gonna tie you to your fucking bed and fuck you until I come and there ain't gonna be any fucking rubber, I'm gonna fucking fill you up and watch you drip and you'll beg for more of my dick. You just fucking wait, Mallory. Fucking spoiled Princess."_

" _Negan!" she screamed as she came again, her vision blurring as he got sloppier, more focussed on himself, her cunt clamped down hard on his cock._

 _He roared and stuttered, his hand on her wrist tightening painfully until they both sagged down together on the couch. Both spent. Both sweat-beaded, near gone._

 _As he seemed to come back to his senses, he let go of her wrist and slipped his hand into hers instead, giving her lips a chaste kiss. They stared at one another before breaking out into identical grins, laughing together._

* * *

Just a deal, that's what it was. Deep down though, Mallory knew exactly why he'd done this for her, or perhaps it was to her. Despite how sweet the gesture of that piano was – and how it had reduced her to more tears than she'd shed since the beginning of the outbreak – it was still a loaded gun between them. Negan had kept his promise when they were together; he'd never bought her a single flower, he'd never told her lies about loving her, never took her on a date but whatever they had was still palpable. She would be lying if she didn't feel a pull towards him but her head knew better than to trust anything he said or did that made her feel human again. He'd made unforgiveable decisions.

And so had she.

"Just let me explain it to Peter," she said, getting up from the piano. "He won't believe it otherwise."

He sighed and tilted his head from side to side, "I guess I am nothing if not a reasonable guy," he said as she suppressed a snort. "Have today as a freebie. Starting tomorrow morning, you're not to go near him or I'll do something you're gonna regret."

"Don't doubt it." She lingered slightly in the door of his bedroom, her arm resting on the jamb. "Can we be… civil?" Mal asked, her eyes unable to keep from darting to his bed. "Keep it civil."

"If you play by the rules, Princess, I'm not gonna press it. Go say goodbye to your boyfriend. Tell him I said hello." There was a smirk in his voice again, another conversation she hadn't been privy to.

Mallory didn't say another word and dashed out of the room, wanting to get out of there before she made any more dumb decisions. She managed to reach the second door – one to the hall outside – and stopped dead just there, a chill going through her spine, her nerves alight. There was piano music, perfect notes, beautiful notes – Für Elise if she wasn't mistaken – floating through his empty office. She wiped her reddened eyes roughly and wrenched open the door.

Last thing she heard before she dashed out was a slam and cursing coming from inside.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. A review or comment is much appreciated (x-posted on AO3)


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"What did you do? What the Hell did you do?!" Peter yelled as he dragged Mallory away from the staring, prying eyes. He'd even managed to lose Caroline as well; her perpetual babysitter was nowhere to be seen and neither were any of Negan's jack-booted thugs. If she hadn't been so confused and angry, Mal might have thought it was weird how he'd managed to get them alone so easily when Negan ran such a tight ship; an eye on every corner and a gun trained on every head.

"Don't you think you should just be grateful?" she replied, wrenching her arm from Peter's grip. "We're in secure walls, with clothes, and food!" Stubbornness had always been his biggest trait, and every hunt for food lead to her pleading with him to trust her judgement; it was exhausting to fight for every decision she wanted to make, having to persuade him for hours that she knew what she was doing. Peter dragged her away from the cafeteria as soon as she'd walked back down, trying to explain desperately what she was going to do to give Peter an easy ride and protect him like she'd promised all those months ago. "You should be kissing my feet and thanking me, not making out that I've done something evil!"

He rolled his eyes as she attempted to walk away from him out of sheer spite, figuring she'd never win. Peter's broad hand shot out and grabbed her again, his grip far more forceful and unyielding even as she tugged half-heartedly against him. "Don't play the martyr, okay? It just doesn't suit you. I never asked you to keep me safe, I never asked you to do anything. I'm not your damsel in fucking distress, I can stand on my own two feet! You don't survive this long without learning something and I can do fine with or without you making deals with your psychopathic ex-boyfriend."

She held her arm away from her body as he refused to let go. "Are you seriously doing this to me right now? I made a fucking deal, shook his hand and everything, that's it. I can't back out now, and you're giving me a hard time?" Head spinning after Negan and his mind games, her hand still tingling and tender from punching his granite-like jaw and yet Peter could make her feel like shit on the bottom of his shoe. Regret wasn't in her nature, not when the situation was dire as it had turned out to be. He wanted her to use her so-called sway against Negan but apparently using her own methods was bad. "I thought this was what you wanted, remember? Me to get closer." What exactly had made him change his mind so fucking quickly?

"I didn't want this, on his terms…" He sighed deeply and turned away from her, his hands on his hips as he dropped her arm. His black hair hung in front of his face again, his eyes sadder than she thought she'd ever seen. The twitches, though – his feet tapping, his fingers flexing, the sighs and his veins standing out – he got like this sometimes, when they'd been holed up together too long. She knew they were ignoring something bigger, an unspoken law or truce, something that neither of them wanted to waste time acknowledging was there. "That maniac is just trying to twist you round his finger, Mallory," he said, looking at the floor dejectedly. "And it's fucking working, that's the worst part. I thought you were smarter than to let him get to you."

Softening slightly, Mal pulled her friend towards her and wrapped her arms around his torso in a loose hug. She needed the comfort as much as he did; a friendly face, a smile, something good to see again when there was only sadness and fighting to keep their heads above water. What she'd sacrificed to keep him safe was as much his loss too, one she hadn't talked to him about – a cost she'd forced on him and was now blindsiding him with. "Look, I'm sorry," Mal replied, hugging him tighter as he relented, holding her tenderly. "I really… I didn't think I had a choice." The words felt bitter in her mouth.

"There's always a choice," he replied, turning his face into her neck. When her skin prickled a little at his warm breath skating across it, Mallory suddenly couldn't remember when she'd last hugged a person with such genuine affection and not out of fear for losing them. True friendships were hard fought for and hard to keep. "I'm going to miss your rebel bullshit." Peter chuckled into her shoulder, his hands pressed flat across her back. "I'm going to miss a lot of things," he spoke in a whisper into her skin.

There was no denying her friend – her only friend – was a good man at heart, a good man that she didn't deserve. Mallory had said repeatedly that he wasn't her boyfriend and it was true; Peter meant more to her than something childish and meaningless. In another world, another life, she thought, maybe it would have been more but that was the hand they'd been dealt. "I'm gonna miss you stealing the last cup of pudding every damn time we find a batch," she chuckled and leant back, still in his embrace. "Maybe things'll change one day. Shit happens so quickly now, I don't know what tomorrow's gonna be like."

A shuddering, nauseating bang came from down the hall. It ripped her away from Peter in an instant, her body on high alert, her hand reaching for a knife that wasn't there anymore. Another bang came. And another, the door vibrating on its hinges. They were both still and quiet, waiting and waiting for what would happen, frozen in fear without their weapons. The banging came incessantly, desperate, scratches of dry fingernails echoing in the empty corridor.

"Was that?" Peter whispered, his eyes wide and pale.

Another crash came from inside the room. "Yeah," she whispered. "Sounds like it."

Mal's skin crawled, the sounds that she'd woken up to too many times; a hungry, fetid Biter smelling living flesh. She glanced at Peter next to her, her heart pounding in her chest with a fear she hadn't felt swallow her up in months. Out in the wild, she had weapons and strategies and knew what to do but now, with the maze of narrow corridors and bare light, she had nothing except the man standing next to her and a newly turned Biter rampaging in a locked room. Peter had frozen beside her as well, neither knowing what to do or whether there were more around them, waiting to stream out. The unrelenting snarling sounds were everywhere, swallowing them up. Boxed inside with a walking corpse, with no weapons and no easy escape, no options.

"Shit, fuck…" she muttered as another bang echoed. Mal panicked and suddenly pulled them both backwards away from the sounds, desperate for her fucking knife. She'd give her left leg to have Lucille. Eyes darting across the exit routes in front of her, irrevocably lost, she started to panic, head pounding. Which way had they come? Which way had he taken them? What even was that room? She didn't recognise a thing and from the look on Peter's face, neither did he. They had walked into a fucking trap, she was sure.

He grabbed her arm in a flash, yanking her backwards violently. "Run…" he said as she jerked, tugging him back in kind.

"We can't leave it!" The door was still pounding, the Biter snarling and growling like an animal. "We have to kill it with something before it starts biting people."

The handle rattled, door thumped and shuddered, groaning with death.

"I don't have any weapons," Peter said, jumping as the door started to crack from the next angry blow.

"It's not like I do either!" The ghost of the bowie knife strapped to her hip was haunting her. "Fucking fuck, we can't leave it, Peter, it'll just kill everyone! There's fucking kids in here! Please!"

Mal yelped in shock as a sickening final crack came, the door splitting into two. Each half dangled from the jamb as the Biter scrambled out, disorientated. Too late.

Mal and Peter backed away quickly from it as it came towards them, jaws snapping and snarling. It was an older looking monster of what used to be a man, its eyes fogged and vacant as it came charging towards them with a shuffling gait, skin grey and tight across its cheekbones. She hadn't seen one so human in a long time.

Mal and Peter ran back down one corridor as it came after them, them picking up the pace as it did. They quickly pounded on the few scant doors they came across along the enclosing halls, trying handles and finding them all locked, every room closed off as they yelled for help. Every exit turned into another corridor to run down like a fucking maze. She banged insistently, trying to break down one of the doors at the end of another corridor as Peter tried another door, using his shoulder to try and break it open. Panic turned into gut wrenching fear and she screamed in frustration, not finding another way, backed into a wall with no way out. Her head was splitting open with the pressure, vision clouding over.

"PETER!" She screamed helplessly.

"Fuck!" Peter cried out as the Biter nearly grabbed his arm in its cold grip. He snatched himself away just as its fingertips grazed his skin. Peter ran towards Mallory, her face hardening into coldness as they ran out of options. She had to keep her promise, had to protect him, do some good in the world for all the bad. "No!" he called out.

Mal threw Peter behind her and shoved as hard as she could at the Biter as it came towards them, her charging like a quarterback at the snarling creature. It stumbled backwards away from them and she took her one and only shot, shoving at it again and again until it landed with a dead weight thud on the ground like a rotten log, its arm snapping in half with a visceral crack.

Peter grabbed her hand and they stomped hard as they could on its head, its broken arm scrambling for their legs, its yellow teeth snapping. They slammed their feet again and again and again against its head, Mal roaring out her anger and fear until the sharp heel of her boot cracked the skull and dug into the greying brain. She cried out, her face red hot and forehead wet with sweat, cheeks tear stained.

Peter stumbled backwards as sticky blood trickled out of its head, staining the concrete as they stomped. He panted and yanked his foot out of the viscera, the body still, sinking away from the corpse. Its brains nothing more now than sludge on their shoes. "It's okay-"

Mallory kept stomping and stomping, thrashing her whole-body weight into its head as her boot drove deeper and deeper into the brain of the dead Biter, flesh and blood splashed and splattered all up her leg and arm. She felt her stomach rising in bile as it landed on her hand and she started to shake violently, roaring out in anguish repeatedly as she stomped and stomped and stomped.

Peter sprang up and pulled her back, the adrenaline waning in her body as he tried to comfort her, his arms wrapping around her once more. Numbness consumed her body like it always did, as dead as the thing on the ground with a smear where its head should have been. She couldn't look at the smear of its brain across her skin or how the thick, coagulated blood stuck to them like brownish glue, cementing her foot in place.

The halls around them were empty and silent, Peter holding her tired body up, her hands still shaking. He wrapped his arms around her body tighter though Mallory still felt nothing but numbness and the acrid taste of bile rising in her throat. She limped away from the corpse and from Peter's hold, pressing both hands to a cold, grey wall as she bent double, disgusted and dead as the thing on the floor.

"Must have died in his sleep," Peter said, his voice distant to her ears. She couldn't hear anything but ringing, her very bones weary and brittle. "Mallory?"

"M'fine," she muttered, her head starting to catch up with her body. Peering back up at Peter, she took a final deep breath before shaking off the blood and brain matter from her leg, clothes sticking to her skin. "Been a while since we had one that… fresh."

Peter nodded vaguely in agreement, reaching out to take her hand. Mal instead looped her arm over his shoulder and leaned on him as they walked away, leaving nothing but bloody footprints fading in their wake.

* * *

"You know, nobody would blame you if you wanted to sit this lesson out," Caroline said, handing Mallory a small cup of steaming hot coffee that she accepted gratefully. "Considering what happened yesterday, you can… take a break?"

"Word spreads fast around here, doesn't it?" She had spent the rest of the day trying to scrub the stench and the blood from her skin and her borrowed clothes. "I'm fine, it was just… unexpected, it's not like I've never put down a Biter before." Taking a sip of the drink, she tried to keep her eyes from wandering around Negan's bedroom too curiously as she sat by the piano. The door had remained open, though the man himself was nowhere to be seen. Mal had honestly been grateful for the distraction when Caroline had cautiously asked to start her lessons that morning.

"I know, but still…" Caroline said, her own cup in her hand. "You don't expect it here. People aren't meant to turn like that, in their sleep." She was quieter, Mallory noticed, like the incident had shaken Caroline more than she'd expected. After that shower and a change of clothes, she'd recovered fine, more than fine, and slept well too.

"How long has it been since there was a Biter on the inside?" Mallory asked, glancing up at her new student.

"A long time. Months, maybe a year. It's not easy to tell weeks and days here without someone keeping a count. We don't exactly have a sign that says '259 days Biter Free' but I can't remember when the last one was either."

Humming softly and looking at her coffee, Mal kept her opinions to herself. She found herself having to resist the urge to tap the piano keys just to make sure it was all real. "I put down my last one maybe a day before I got here," she replied. "And I killed one yesterday using my fucking boot. Would have been useful if I'd had an actual weapon but I guess I made do, huh? Mom always said I was resourceful."

"He was a person to someone here! He had friends, worked in the gardens, lived a life. Maybe you need reminding about that from time to time," replied Caroline curtly and sat down next to her on the bench, her body tense.

It was ridiculous that she was still having this argument with people who had no idea what it was like to live on the outside, without the protection that The Sanctuary provided. "I don't doubt it but it's hard to think about that when he was trying to eat my face," she looked at Caroline pointedly. "Can we just get started here?" Mallory asked, rubbing her temple. "I'm probably already on your husband's shit list for yesterday. I don't want to make it worse."

"Fine." Caroline set her coffee cup on the top of the piano.

Instantly, Mallory's eyes bugged and she reached up, placing it on top of a book of sheet music instead. She took a breath and sighed. "You know anything about playing piano?"

"Not much beyond how it works," Caroline replied, smoothing down her skirt and blouse. She was so practiced, this woman next to her, elegant and refined, like she was moulded from clay to poke at Mal's sensibilities and amorality purposefully. Mallory didn't know if she wanted to teach anymore, or if she even had the patience for it with someone like Caroline, a perfectionist people-pleaser who was rubbing her up the wrong way.

After as long an hour of her life as there had ever been – or maybe it two or three – showing Caroline the exercises and scales, Mal's mind and eyes began to wander around the room, her nerve and patience tested at the jarring slipped notes. She let Caroline play again and again until she was getting close to half-decent, her fingers becoming more dexterous as they practiced and practiced until the slipped notes were disappearing and Mal's patience started to return.

There were, in fact, other things to notice around Negan's bedroom as the piano droned; the books on his shelves, the half-empty jar of pomade on the window ledge to her left, the emptiness of his night stands and red silk sheets crumpled and messy. It was… stark at best, she thought. There were no photographs, nor anything to remind her of the first Lucille, only the mantle that her namesake had to rest on every night. His bat got better treatment than half the people here.

"Mallory? Mallory?" Caroline said, looking at her pointedly, her voice laced with exasperation. "I asked if you could show me a song."

Shit. She had zoned out more than she'd intended, apparently not hearing whatever Caroline had been talking about. "Right, yeah, of course…" she replied, repositioning her hands easily over the keys. The instrumental piece Mallory played flowed easily as the silk of his sheets, her fingers finding home in the keys like she'd never stepped away from it. Her once pale skin seemed to glow warmer as she played, her mind focussing on the music and away from the noise in her head.

"Wow," Caroline said after a minute of simply listening and watching her fingers, her awe sounding sincere for once. "How long have you been doing this?"

Mal let the song reverberate out, having to think about an answer to her question; what even was the year now? Caroline hadn't been wrong about time getting away from them now. "Since I was three, so roughly 25 years, maybe, I'm not exactly whether I'm 27 or 28. My grandmother had a piano, so it was always there in the house when I was young. I was her only granbaby, so she just… taught me on my own." Mal stared vacantly down at the black and white of the keys, positioning her hands to hover, ghosting a shadow over the notes.

"What songs did she teach you?" Caroline asked quietly, like she was afraid.

Tears started to bead in Mallory's eyes as she simply played a too-familiar song, her blue eyes were hot and stinging her vision again, but, still she put up a fight against the urge to cry. She didn't want anyone else, least of all Caroline, to see her in tears over some fucking music, not when there were worse things to be sad about.

It still felt like another life ago, on a different planet, that she had been a teacher, someone who spread some joy and happiness into people's lives and enjoyed the process too. She thought about her grandma, her Mom, the students in her Adult Ed classes, all the damn kids she'd taught before the end of the world had come about. Every single face she saw had to be dead, all those fucking kids, all those people, dead and turned, wasted lives lost in pain and fear. She saw that Biter's vacant eyes, his teeth… she felt them snapping at her throat and the waxy feeling of its drying skin.

Suddenly, and all at once, Mal couldn't breathe, her throat tight and head swimming in faces of the dead and the decay, walls enclosing around her as there was laughter in her face. She was back at the end of that hallway, she was shooting her mother between her fogged-up eyes, she was sinking a knife into Peter's sister, people she had known ripped apart and eaten, screaming for the sweeter taste of death in the face of so much pain.

There was a claw-like hand around her wrist tightening its grip and she thrashed at her assailant, her chest heaving as she tried to come back to herself, heart thudding. She saw Caroline's stricken face, scant tears that mirrored her own trailing over pink cheeks. "Shh it's okay," she said, leaning and wrapping her arms around Mal in a loose hug. "Sweetheart, it's okay. What's wrong?"

"Don't touch me," she gasped, pulling away desperately from Caroline's cloying arms and breathing in great gulps of clean air. "Can't breathe…" Somehow, she was now keening on the floor, the piano bench knocked astray, Caroline kneeling in front of her. Mal's head was still spinning as she scrambled against the dizziness that consumed her. Pain pierced through her skull where she'd been hit with Simon's gun, like someone had stabbed her head repeatedly. Caroline's touch had suffocated the life from her, the air sucked from the room so there was nothing but dead space encroaching on her body again. She just felt the sick laughter and sliding locks and the eyes and screams of dead people.

"Where is she?! Move out of the fucking way!" Came a commanding shout from in front of her, Negan barrelling into his own bedroom. Mallory vaguely heard a clattering of wood before his palms pressed her back down so her head was lower to the ground and she panicked. "Just fucking breathe, Jesus Christ," he growled, his own voice sounding strained to her ear. It was far away, out of her reach. His hands felt familiar as one kept her in that position, making her stay still as she breathed. And breathed, waiting for Lucille's blow to her head.

And breathed again, air filling her burning lungs. No blow came.

Mallory placed her palms flat on the floor to stop her head from spinning out of control again as someone stroked her back in a soothing rhythm. She wasn't sure what had happened, whether it was her head injury or just a panic attack – either was embarrassing enough in front of Negan and Caroline, when word around the place spread like wildfire and she'd have another label pinned on her. Her eyes were screwed shut and Mal instead focussed on herself, a shiver going down her spine as she felt the press of something cold on the back of her neck, cooling her heated blood.

"Princess," Negan said, less distant, less… Negan-y. "Can't I leave you alone for five minutes without you getting into some kind of fucking trouble?" He almost teased though even in her state she could hear how thinly veiled his anger still was.

As her head finally felt like it was trying to settle back down, she looked up at him. He was holding something, probably a wash cloth, to the back of her neck, the water trickling down her back. "Guess not…" she wasn't sure what the skip in her gut was, whether she was grateful for his help or ashamed that he had to help in the first place when she'd told him in no uncertain terms that she'd never need anything he could provide. "What the Hell was in that coffee?" Chuckling a little, she pushed his hands off her as she sat back on her haunches, exhausted again.

"Just coffee," Caroline said, standing in front of her with her arms wrapped around her chest. "What was all that? She just flipped out."

"None of your fucking business, that's what happened," Negan growled, standing up and storming over to Caroline, who was lingering by the door. Mal couldn't hear what was said, but Caroline nodded and dashed out of the room soon after, a blank expression on her paling face.

Mallory swallowed as she managed to haul her dead-weight of a body up and sat back on the piano bench, using the washcloth to dab at her hot cheeks and pounding head. The cloth wiped away the remnants of the grime and death on her face. Maybe the attack had jolted her head again and it was a delayed reaction; it was a less embarrassing thing than a panic attack. It wasn't like she'd not been through shit lately, so why would she have one now? It didn't make sense that Negan knew what was going on or how he had known what to do instead of just yelling at her to get a grip.

Pacing across the room, he clicked his tongue against his teeth and pulled off his leather jacket, tossing it onto his messy bed without care. He squatted in front of her and bounced, his expression inscrutable. "You and I need to talk about the fucking rules here. Like killing Biters on our own without a fucking weapon and with a fucking head injury, just to make things worse." He looked furious at her, her gut squirming again. "Fucking fuck, Mallory, you just loooove making my life a fucking misery, don't you?" He seethed. "Thirty guards patrolling round with goddamn weapons! And you… you're the one who puts a fresh Biter down with just your fucking right foot, God, don't I look fucking stupid. And I only heard about it five fucking minutes ago!" He slammed his fist into the wall, away from her face. "You made my guys look like goddamn toy soldiers with plastic fucking guns!"

"I didn't realise I wasn't allowed to save my own life around here," she said, trapped by his body in front of her. "I gotta go get _Daddy's_ permission before I kill something that was trying to eat me?!"

Negan's eyes flared dangerously dark as he pulled her to her feet.

* * *

 _Expecting to wake up to an empty bed and a pounding headache, maybe even the mother of all hangovers, Mallory was instead pleasantly surprised as she was coaxed into waking by a warm arm wrapped around her, determined fingers trailing up and down her bare back. They traversed her spine as delicate as stroking rose petals despite their size. She groaned, pleasantly contented, and pulled her own wild hair off Negan's bare chest. He was stupidly good looking in the morning, sleepy at the edges with a warmth and humanity that she loved when it was directed at her._

" _There you are, sleeping beauty," Negan was already grinning down at her lasciviously, "I almost had to resort to drastic measures. Thought I'd fucked you straight into a coma." He chuckled, hand still running up and down her back rhythmically._

" _Not for a lack of trying…" she mumbled, leaning over him to peer at the clock. "Oh fuck, it's like 9am," she said, moving to get up._

 _He tugged her back towards him effortlessly, holding her in place with an arm wrapped around her waist. "Noooope. Not gonna happen today."_

" _Don't you have work?" she asked, half-heartedly trying to move again though it only served to make him hold her down tighter. "Negan, come on, I can't lay here all day and neither can you."_

" _Given the choice of blowing a fucking tin whistle at some greasy faced teenagers or spending the morning with my dick inside you, I think we'll go for the latter," he said a little forcefully, giving Mal a pointed look._

" _Tin whistle?" she teased. "What are you, teaching in the 40s?" When he gave her a look, she sighed in mock exasperation. "Okay fine, I'd rather be in bed with you too but we can't have sex constantly, can we?"_

 _In response, his solid mass of thigh slipped between her softer ones to coax her legs apart without much preamble. "Who says we can't?" He asked with a quirk of his brow and a slow, salacious smirk. "You think all those things I said last night were just words? I live up to my fucking promises, Princess. One day, when you trust me enough, I am gonna tie you to this fucking bed and spend all day making you my personal fuck toy until you beg me to let you come."_

 _Mallory whined into his chest as he pressed his thigh up slightly, catching her at a good angle like he had planned it purposefully to toe a line between tease and pleasure. "What do you mean when I trust you enough?" she asked, looking up at him with latent curiosity, one foot running down his calf._

" _When you trust that I'm the only one fucking you, and that there's nothing wrong with me so I don't have to use a fucking rubber every time I want to screw your brains out. Fucking annoying pieces of crap…" he said with disdain, earning a laugh from her lips. Men._

" _Fucking necessary pieces of crap," she chuckled too, eyes sparkling. "So, you actually want to..."_

" _Fuck yeah I do, when you trust me enough," Negan repeated, both of his palms travelling down towards her ass and gripping her solidly to pull her further onto his thigh._

 _It was his turn to groan when Mallory instead slipped her own leg up and caressed as lightly as he had done to her. She could feel his cock, hot and half-hard on her stomach, unable to stop the excited joy she felt at having him in her bed. Relationships had been toxic to her so some casual sex with an extremely unselfish lover was Heaven and Hell mixed together, a heady addiction she was already deep into._

 _Having the advantage of her hands, Mal pushed herself up so she was leaning over him, her hair cascading down her shoulders in waves of vibrant red, messy and ruffled from a night of fucking. She kissed him then, a slow kiss that soon raged into a burning, coursing fire, his hands moving from her ass to her hips like they glided over silk. He wasn't scared to touch her or needy in the way he did so, treating her like a human being and not a piece of meat or a delicate porcelain doll in kind._

" _As wake up calls go," she muttered against his lips, her hips canting up to get more friction when he stayed still. "This one's pretty high up there."_

" _Don't get ahead of yourself," he said, squeezing her ass just a little. "Believe me, I'll spend all day buried to the hilt in that hot little pussy of yours but we're gonna go over some ground rules with this shit." The next thing she knew, Mallory was flipped over onto her back, Negan's legs pinning her down to her own mattress as he pressed into her. Her nostrils flared in annoyance that he could so easily spring an attack on her. "There, much better," he grinned again, pulling her wrists down to her sides, arms straight and locked in place._

 _Groaning in frustration at being so effectively pinned, Mal changed tactic and looked up at his naked body, licking her lips in the way she knew he liked. "You really want to talk about the rules now? Sure you don't want to wait to talk about this after we have sex again? That thing must be getting painful."_

" _We screwed three times last night after a few shots and about half a dozen beers between us," he said, unwilling to let her go even an inch despite her incessant wiggling. "That's enough of a taste test for now, Princess. Keep your fucking ass still while I'm talking."_

 _His last command was spoken with such authority that it made her eyes open wider. Her body instantly still in place while her skin flushed pink over her chest, tingling and warm. It wasn't painful, it wasn't frightening, it was something deeper inside her that responded so viscerally to his manhandling._

 _Mal smiled dirtily up at him, deciding to play along. "Alright, Negan, what are the rules?"_

 _The joking look dropped from his face and she shuddered again. "First off, you don't ask me anything about work unless we're actually in work and, even then, only if it's fucking necessary," he let her wrists go slowly, and seemed pleased that she kept them in place of her own accord. "And you don't ask me anything about my wife or where she thinks I am. That's the big one, sweet peach – you stay out of that part of my life."_

" _Hardly fair…" she grumbled, annoyed. "How come I can't go on any dates or have a fucking boyfriend or anything when you're married? Double goddamn standard."_

" _Because one, I don't share. And two, I have a fuck of a lot more on the line to lose than you do. You're just the Adult Ed girl – I work there with the kids so if they find out I'm fucking a 20-something year old, then I'm out of a job. You're not having any boyfriends or any limp dick dates because then I can trust you to keep your fucking mouth shut and there won't be any eyes on us."_

 _Mal had to concede that it made a bit more sense at least, though part of her thought that he was just looking for an excuse to be possessive. "I'm 24…" she muttered grudgingly in reply, conceding._

" _Next rule: you don't come to my house unless in-fucking-vited. I'm guessing you're a smart enough girl to know that one's a rule already."_

" _Do I look like a moron?" she asked, his hands now drifting to cup and play with her breasts as if he couldn't go five minutes without touching her. Mallory didn't rise to the bait and kept her own hands pinned to her sides resolutely, though her fingers itched to traverse the hair on his chest. He had to know the effect he was having on her._

" _Those are my only strict rules – no work talk outside of work, no other men, no asking me about my wife and no coming to my house. Easy peasy, lemon fucking squeezy."_

 _His hands slid down over her chest and ribcage, skimming across to her waist and back up again, taunting her to move and see what would happen. Mallory didn't move a muscle. "Not that I'm crazy about dating," she said carefully, "But what if I do meet someone and want to see where it goes?"_

 _Negan's eyes seemed to dull a little at the idea. "Then we'd be over. I don't share my women, Princess, you're mine or you're not. Enthusiastic fucking consent." His hands rested on her hips, his thumb drifting to her clit, skimming it slightly just to make her whine. "What I do promise is that you will never get heartbroken or have to do anything you don't want to do or go anywhere you don't want to go. You don't gotta talk to me or listen to me complain, you don't have to dress fancy or be anything other than who you wanna be…" he raked the nail of his other thumb down her hip and she whimpered at the shivers he wrought. "All I want is what I said in the fucking first place. Just sex, no bullcrap, no complications. My wife ain't gonna come after you and I'm not chasing you anymore either. You want out, that's fine. Wish you well. But… I'd rather you stayed."_

 _How the fuck did he make it sound so enticing? No boyfriend mess, no drama, nothing involved except laughter and sex? Hell, he was even good at it. She'd have to be a fucking fool to pass that up. Mallory was young, free, independent from relying on men for anything and here Negan was offering himself as her living sex toy. He was that kind of a man, she knew, one who loved women and loved the power he could exert over their pleasure. She didn't know much about him but then did she really need to when it was just screwing around?_

" _Where do I sign?" she grinned up at him, chuckling._

 _Negan laughed along with her, that lustful look back on his face at a snap as he bent down and kissed her again. The night before, he had spent an hour just with his mouth on her, turning her into a mess of sweat and post-orgasmic bliss with her own sheets becoming wrapped around her legs and clenched in her fists at the pleasure. If there was anything more beautiful than the sight of that man's face, eager and desperate between her thighs then Mallory couldn't imagine it. She had learned the shape of his tattoos and he'd seen hers, a Celtic pattern behind her ear that nobody had noticed before. Negan had delighted in tracing it with his tongue as he fucked her from behind agonisingly slowly until she had begged him to make her come._

" _Good thing you're a quick learner," he muttered into her ear, turning them again so she could take a bit of control back._

 _It was a reward for following his lead, for listening to his rules and she was soon straddling his thighs. Mal gazed down hungrily at the man between her legs as hers and only hers. Maybe she was feeling a little arrogant that he'd chosen her instead of that blonde English tutor but, with him at her mercy, she felt like a fucking Queen. That was what drew a mass of women to Negan, she thought – not the power he had but the power he inspired. She'd never known anything like it. Need and want became consuming when put in his hands to give out._

 _Hands skimmed over his torso in an echo of his own stroking of her chest, Mallory finally getting to rake her nails deeply over his skin and through his chest hair, enjoying the growl and how his stomach contracted and jerked at her touch. "Someone's ticklish…" she muttered, biting her bottom lip impishly. "That's… unexpected."_

" _Don't even fucking think about it, Princess," he warned, pulling her legs apart by her knees to expose her to the air. "I can still tease you from down here, you know."_

" _Those are fighting words," Mal replied, leaning across to her night stand and pulling another rubber from the box, her stash already greatly diminished from their night of sexcapades. "Maybe another time, when you're least expecting it, I'll strike you down and there'll be nothing you can do about it."_

" _Even try tickling me and you'll wake up one morning with a gag in your mouth and some pathetic bit of silicone inside you," he threatened, bucking as she slipped the piece of thin latex onto his hardening cock. "Mother of mercy, I might fucking do that anyway, that's hot as Hell. You pink all over, unable to do anything but take it when I give it. Fucking beautiful, don't you think?"_

 _Mallory wouldn't admit that it did sound hot as Hell to her, too. She'd never considered herself that kinky but Negan had one filthy mouth on him that she was already enjoying– as he said – with enthusiastic fucking consent. She was already soaking wet and beyond ready as she shifted herself to sink on his cock without warning, both swearing and groaning as she did. Her hands found stability and tightened on as she bottomed out, the angle pushing her body to another limit. It almost stung, how he stretched her, partly from all their overnight drunken adventures and from the position. Mallory's eyes watered softly, her stomach quivering as she took her time in getting used to him again._

" _Shh, shh," Negan said softly. It must have been killing him to not take over and thrust up inside her and she was grateful for this control, to take the time he'd given her. "There's my good girl. Look at you, fucking goddess…" he praised incessantly, his hands trailing and groping everywhere they could as if he couldn't decide where he wanted to touch her first. "Fucking tight, Jesus, Mallory, ride my dick. I want to see your tits bounce."_

 _His words spurred her on and Mal started to slide up and down his cock slowly, leaning forward just enough to make her own body light up in response to his hips canting up into her. She gripped her headboard with one hand and took her own pleasure first, "Negan," she moaned as his hands settled on her ass, guiding instead of controlling. "Fucking feels so good."_

" _Yeah it does," he groaned in reply, voice straining. "Look at me, fuck, look at me."_

 _She ignored the order and kept riding him, feeling her muscles pulse in readiness as she did, her breasts bouncing dutifully._

" _I fucking said look at me," he growled and thrust his hips up roughly into hers, patience fading._

 _Her eyes snapped up as she cried out in pleasure and pain, one of his hands moving to grip her jaw lightly, forcing her face to meet his gaze. "Negan!" she said, strangled, just as he stuffed his thumb past her swollen lips. She licked it on instinct, sucking at his skin and tasting him and only him. He refused to let her attention focus on anything but them in bed together, chasing each other towards an end._

 _Mal scraped her teeth across the pad of his thumb and he groaned out loudly, the bed creaking and cracking as they fucked each other with a fiery passion. "Mallory," he said, voice rough and tense, "You better fucking come on my dick now, I wanna see you fucking soak me." Negan smacked her ass cheek hard with his wide palm, her cunt tightening around him in a guttural response._

" _Mother… fucking Hell…" she managed to say through her croaking throat. "Need..."_

 _His wet thumb immediately attacked her clit viciously, rubbing in tight little circles as she came hard and fast around his cock, gasping and breaking apart on top of him. Negan didn't stop jackhammering up into her, barely able to move as her pussy gripped him tighter. She felt him groan in his chest as he came, hips stuttering until they were both exhausted and spent, sweaty and fucked beyond measure again, her thighs sticky with her own wetness._

 _Mallory collapsed on his chest, her eyes wide open and gasping for breath, surprised at how quickly that had gotten so intense when they had spent most of last night learning every inch of the other. "Gonna need more condoms," she muttered, her whole body limp and exhausted across his._

 _Negan pushed aside her messy, sweat-damp hair and kissed her forehead with tenderness. "And coffee."_

* * *

"I've never hit a woman in all my fucking life but you are pushing it!" Negan yelled, pacing up and down again. "Just tell me exactly; why do you think I have fucking guards with fucking guns fucking for, Mallory?!"

She winced at her name from his lips, knowing she really was in deep shit. It wasn't fair when she had only been defending herself. Why wasn't Peter getting yelled at too? Because of their deal? Because he'd promised her? "What do you want me to say?" she said, backing up to the wall as he stalked ever closer. It was sickening to be treated like a child by all of them, by Caroline, Negan and Peter all at once. It wasn't anyone's job tell her what to do – she could hold her own damn head up above water and could kill her own monsters. "You want me to say that I'm sorry? Because I'm not. This place isn't fucking perfect. We got into an argument, we got lost and we got jumped. It's not my goddamn fault your guards suck ass. And you're the one who took my bowie knife away!"

"Mine! My fucking knife, remember?" Negan said, his hands clenching and unclenching as if he missed the hilt of Lucille to grip – she was by the door where he'd dropped her.

"Same goddamn difference. If I had it, I wouldn't have had to stomp on its head, I wouldn't have had to run, I wouldn't have had Biter brains all over me." She huffed her chest out. "So punish me. Do whatever you do to people here, I heard whispers about it when I was downstairs yesterday. Go get your iron out, melt my face from the bone if you want! You were always a fucking sadistic bastard."

"Yeah but you creamed your panties for it, Princess," he seethed. Negan looked right then like he was about to hit her before he laughed again, voice eerily calm and composed now. "I should give you the punishment you fucking deserve. These people here trust me to keep them safe and I can't have you doing that job for me, making us look like amateurs. You are on fucking bed rest for the remainder of the week, I don't give one tiny little shit if I have to strap you onto that bed my-goddamn-self."

Disgust rippled through her. He knew full damn well she couldn't take that, not for five minutes, let alone a week. "Like Hell, I'd rather have the fucking iron."

He ignored her easily, stalking up to her as a predator ready to strike her down. "Bed rest, sleeping beauty. I'll find you a room and lock you up if I have to. You ever do anything so stupid again, I'll-"

"You'll what?" she dared, squaring up to him, craning up her neck to see him, irate.

He grinned viciously and grabbed her chin, pressing his lips to hers in a punishing kiss. Taken aback, Mal's brain took a moment – a flash of a second – to register what was happening. Desperate hands pushed him away from her, shock and anger and disgust draining through her. His eyes were sparkling and dark, mirth and victory showing in his face.

"I'll lock you up, throw away the fucking key," Negan threatened quietly, his fist flexing on the wall next to her head. "And forget you ever existed."

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. A review or comment is much appreciated (x-posted on AO3)


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"No," she paled at his threat to lock her away. "You can't. It's not fair." It was all so complicated.

In the most pivotal moments of her life, there had always been choices to make, a decision to call and take the consequences whether they were bad or good. Making the right moves and taking the right path was easier than she'd anticipated. There were choices when people got sick, when people got bit, when they were dying – those were the easy ones, to just put them out of their misery and protect what she had left and salvage from the wreckage. The difficulty came when the numbers got fewer, when good in people became harder to spot and easier to screw over. There were vicious killers, dangerous and deadly, who were the monsters she had come across more often, again and again and again. The ones that lurked and killed in the dead of night, those who would appear as a balm, as a friend… her nightmares resonated still. When Mallory had found roasted human bones, long cold and aged, she hadn't said a word to anyone.

Her own lines blurred too easily. There grew in her a ruthlessness, a steel cast from their first loss at the hands of a living, breathing being: children were easier pickings, she supposed, since you could hold one hostage and demand anything in exchange for empty promises. She'd made the wrong call that day. A wrong call she was still paying for, years later. But that, those choices she could see, she could understand how hunger and need and desperation to survive could drive the warmest and most loving of people to do disgusting, heinous things just for a meal. She'd done some herself.

Yes, Mallory had long drawn and re-drawn her boundaries, the lines she was willing and unwilling to cross and had – once or twice – become what she was trying desperately not to but she still had lines. The man in front of her, his demonic glint of glee, lay a fire of rage and savagery that lived in his face like it was carved into his bones. There were monsters beyond the monsters, sadism and brutality for gain and then, and only then, there was Negan. He wasn't a sadist for gain, he didn't take what he wanted in order to survive because he was already a God among scared followers. He took because he _could_ take, because he wanted to push pain and endurance to its limits in people, break them down into beings who were rotting faster than the Biters. Mallory had seen how he could do it, before the outbreak, she'd felt his need for control and supplication and threw it off her shoulders because... because she _liked_ it.

He knew. He knew all too fucking well how the sounds of locks and the clink of metal bars drove her to desperation, how they broke her down. Threats he made to her, never empty, were always so fucking personal. She could still taste him on her lips even as she shoved him away, her body trembling in disgust at herself more than at his actions. He would break her, he would smash her up, he would _wreck_ her. Because he knew now, he had felt it in her for that tiny fleeting moment made of memory.

She had kissed him back and willingly so.

Negan whistled, long and low, the coldness of his eyes mitigating a smile. "Oh Princess, Princess," he still encroached her space, one fist tapping on the wall next to her head in a rhythm. "My sweet, juicy Georgia peach," he licked his lips, as if he could taste her still. "I know you're scared. There's worst things I could do, though, right?" She couldn't speak, voice stuck in her throat. "You don't know the worst I could do…. do you wanna hear it?" He positively sparked at that, bouncing on his heels. "Do you wanna see?! I could, I could just take you out to the colonies, they know how to treat me right and they're due a reminder, I think. I'll just pick some pathetic waste of resources and turn his head into fucking cheese spread. Maybe I'll make you lick Lucille clean afterwards, like a fucking lollipop. I know how eager that tongue of yours is." Negan's eyes flared again. "Would that be better than a warm bed, Mallory? Is licking blood off my Lucille preferable to Her Majesty's demands?"

"No…" she said, keeping herself from more trouble, lest he act out the threat she knew he found enticing.

Tutting, he leant back and she could think again, not surrounded so completely by his darkness. "No?" Negan shook his head, dropping his voice to a whisper she had to strain to hear. "Well ain't that a damn shame. We can save it for the next time, can't we?" Mallory felt his finger running over her stitched-up head, wincing at the stinging it produced. "Nothing you wanna say to your old pal Negan? Since we're being fucking _civil_."

"I am sorry for yesterday." The words felt like Lucille's barbs down her throat but she spat them out all the same despite herself. Mallory could ask him not to touch her, she could ask him to give her space but it seemed like a bad idea to even try. He knew his power over her now, through that kiss, he knew that he could break her. He would try. Let him try.

"You know what? I'm kinda believing you now. Did not think you were gonna be that easy to wear down, Mallory, I am almost disappointed in you, such a shame. I like it when you fight me, and you like it too." Her lips betrayed her as the bare corner quirked in a stiff smile for a flash of a second. "There it is. Hello firecracker. You do like standing up to me."

"No, I don't," she replied, bristling at the accusation.

"Lying little liar, pants on fire," Negan said in a sing-song voice. "That pretty head of yours might as well be my palace, Princess, come on. You can't stop yourself, can you?" He chuckled smugly. "Don't be ashamed to like what you like, how many times I gotta tell you? Revving the engine's half the fun."

"Fuck you," she muttered, though her body was still half-frozen in place. "I'm not that girl anymore. Fuck you and fuck this place."

"Fuck this place?" Looking at her for a second, Mallory saw something that would have been akin to hurt in a normal person. Negan pulled away from her and grabbed Lucille from the doorway, waving her shaft erratically. "I fucking warned you, Mallory, and there you go, trying to hurt my feelings like I ain't got none." His voice slipped into mania and he grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt, lifting her away from the wall. "You are coming with me, fucking spoiled little brat, get walking." Negan practically threw her forward, her feet catching as he did. Coffee was already staining his floor.

Mallory felt Lucille's bite in between her shoulder blades as Negan frogmarched her out. He wouldn't stop talking either, not when he grabbed a random guard, not when he pushed her forwards with Lucille, he even ran his mouth when she bled through her shirt. They came to an already open room a few doors down from his office, a frigidly cold space that contained only an un-dressed bed and an old wood desk chipped and marred by time. It still reeked of death to her, stank of bleach and blood. Forcing her inside, Negan pulled a key from guard's belt, the young woman lingering by the door with a more-than-satisfied smirk on her face. That scared her more than Negan did.

"You can't do this," Mallory protested, attempting to keep the terror from her voice at being confronted with her punishment. "You can't lock me away, you can't!"

"One fucking week, Mallory, one motherfucking week. You do what I say, when I fucking say it and then you might be in a better position to negotiate. You think I'm treating you like your _Daddy_ would?" He spat the word, gleeful in his twisted imagination. "Then I'm grounding you until further fucking notice."

"No, no, Negan-"

"Shut the fuck up!" he thundered. "Bad girls get punished, remember? It ain't my choice of punishment, trust me, but I don't think you're quite ready enough to take it like you used to." He licked his lips lasciviously, obviously restraining himself from giving her what he wanted to. "I'll have some clothes and shit brought up to you, Princess, something to keep you warm and cosy tonight," he winked. "I think you'll make a nice next door neighbour for Amber. The walls here are thin as fuck, though..." he leant closer in, like he was divulging a great secret. "And she can get kinda loud, like you do." Negan winked. "Arat's gonna take good care of you tonight."

Mallory watched silently as he looked her up and down, as if he was remembering every second of who he had made her into with that single glance. Not another word passed his lips as he stalked back out, head trained on the ground though that smirk was unmistakable. The lock clicked in place behind him and the last thing she heard was his soft, chilling bark of a laugh. Unable to do anything else, she stood as a stone in the middle of the room, unwavering and cold.

* * *

 _For a few weeks, her life was a whirlwind of work and sex and Mallory's enthusiasm for both hadn't abated, though she expected it to. It had been a struggle to contain the two parts as separate entities, particularly when she would steal long lingering glimpses of him out on the field with his football team, when Negan was as messy, ruffled and sweat-dewed as he was in her bed. She didn't think anyone knew anything about their fuck-buddy status since he was far better at containing his desire for her, even when she knew it was there. He would – and did – surprise her constantly when nobody was looking at them, giving her ass a pinch or sliding past her and making sure she could feel him. Negan liked to tease._

 _The generally blissed-out, fucked-beyond-measure mood made work easier as well; she played for herself, put out her business cards and was glad for the freelancing work she was receiving in tandem. Mal taught disgustingly rich people how to play the pianos they'd bought for living room furniture and relished the opportunity to play real instruments. Indeed, she saw it as her duty to make sure the beautiful pianos were used and not left to gather dust and stiffen as so many people did. She even booked a gig as a private pianist for a soiree one of the rich clients was hosting; she didn't exactly know what the difference between a soiree and a party was but she had been happy to charge them a few hundred dollars for the pleasure of finding out. Her rent was secure for three whole fucking months after that one party, playing Handel and Bach for handsy old geezers smoking sweet tobacco. She was busy, busier than ever._

 _And so, it became inevitable, she thought, that Negan would lose interest in her._

 _For weeks, he'd dropped by her house two or three or four nights in a row, sleeping at hers if he happened to come by on Fridays. Mallory discovered a lot of things he allowed her to discover; that vanilla wasn't in Negan's vocabulary, that he was as unselfish a lover as they came, that he could tell what she was thinking before she'd formulated a though. One of those nights with her had been spent with Mallory sat on his face the entire time, him making her come over and over and never letting her touch him back. He'd heap praise on her relentlessly until she felt a million times lighter than air, like she was sitting on clouds. It was easy, it was fucking hot, it was completely and utterly effortless to be attracted to him, to want him night upon night in whatever way he asked for because he made it that way. Simple, raw, and honest. Until it just wasn't any of those things._

 _She realised suddenly and stupidly one night that she hadn't seen Negan for at least half the week, maybe more. Having cut her hours down at the school, it was getting harder and when she'd been there, he just hadn't. Negan hadn't texted or called, hadn't slipped her a dirty stick figure drawing on a post-it note in her pigeon hole – nothing. His interest in her was fading; they had drifted away so suddenly and without warning that she'd just… forgotten about it._

 _The next day though, that Monday night, he was there. And Jesus, he looked awful in the most beautiful way, like she'd never seen him before. Like the ruins of some granite statue knocked down and crumbled._

 _Negan hadn't shaved in a week by the look of it and had that pissed-off-at-the-world darkness barely simmering under the brim of his cold exterior. She'd be worried if she didn't find it so fucking attractive. Taking the initiative that night, Mallory waited until she saw he was alone in the staff room before making her move, only for him to ignore her and brush her hand off his shoulder as he walked past like she was nothing, like he hadn't been tongue-deep in her cunt the week before._

 _The outright rejection stung her deeper than she wanted to admit and knocked her ego in tandem, the ego he'd built a goddamn plinth for display. The bastard was under her skin and not knowing what had changed was slowly eating at her._

 _Even asking him what was going on would break his stupid fucking rules; no emotions, that was the deal, no complications, no mess. For the rest of the week, she quietly seethed and ruminated; night after night of nothing but apathy and silence. He didn't even look like himself; like someone was attempting a really shitty impression of him instead. Whatever had happened – whether it was her or his home life – to bring him down, she was going to find out._

" _Sorry, are you Mallory?" one of his students had asked her the next day, when he was passing her in the hall. She had told her own class to pack up early so she could go get drunk on cheap beer and Prosecco at home, waiting for a call that wouldn't come. When exactly had she gotten so needy to rely on Negan for her stress release? "I just, uh, I've seen you around and wanted to talk to you," the man asked again, knocking her back into the present._

 _This guy was fairly normal looking, she thought, not the kind she expected from Negan's band of brothers. He was your average thirty-something divorced Dad looking to get his ego back, the same as her. Negan had to be thrown out of her system. "Yeah, that's me. Sorry, I don't know your name?"_

" _I'm Byron, hi," he replied. "I don't guess that you've got any spaces left for a late starter? Only I tried to sign up before but was told your books were all full. You're really popular, so…"_

" _Oh!" she said, brightening immediately. "Right, sure, absolutely..." she opened up her purse and pulled out a notebook, her rosters inside of it. "There's two spots I can get you in for, the Thursday class or the Wednesday," she said, her eyes darting between her book and his face._

 _He was… actually kind of cute once she got there; dirty blonde hair, all stuck up every which way in the back like he'd been running his fingers through it manically. He had ears that curled out at the tops and a scar on the end of his brow, the skin paler there than the rest of him. She didn't usually go for blonde guys but he made it work, some kind of California surfer dude wearing the messiest, most ripped up clothes she'd ever seen, and dark blonde scruff around his jaw._

" _You do private lessons?" Byron asked softly, catching her staring. "I'd feel like I was chasing everyone else to catch up." He smiled at her and Mal felt that skip in her stomach, the one she had felt when Negan would praise her at every turn. It felt good to have that again, a tiny spark that could build into something real._

" _Yeah, I do, actually, here…" she looked up and produced a scruffy business card. But her hand hovered in the air as he took the piece of card, Mallory's eyes fixated on a person watching them from afar, her skin prickling on the back of her neck. He wouldn't look away._

 _He was just there, leaning on the wall at the end of the hall without a care in the world. Negan cut a dark contrast, black t-shirt and combat jeans with heavy boots, unmoving and blank next to Byron's golden warmth, her new student's face animated and lively, engaging and friendly. She hadn't seen Negan smile with any warmth for days. Would he consider her talking to Byron as breaking his stupid motherfucking rules? She was allowed friends, he'd never stipulated against that and it was business. Just business._

 _Not knowing whether it was a reaction that she wanted or just to feel desired again, she couldn't say. Mallory couldn't put her hand up to why she did what she did, mostly because she feared what the real answer would be when she got it._

" _Wait, sorry," she said a second later, her mind racing. "I think that's an old number, can I give you my new one?"_

" _Yeah go for it," Byron replied in kind. "My little girl's gonna go crazy, if I get any good. You teach kids too? She's asking about lessons."_

" _Definitely, you can bring her down any time you like." Mal found a pen and took his hand in hers, writing her phone number on the top of it swiftly and smoothly, her heart thudding in her chest as she did so. "How old is she, your daughter?"_

" _She's seven, her name's Alanis," he said, glancing at the number with a smile._

 _Mallory beamed and saw Negan behind Byron, stalking towards them with his hands buried in his pockets. If she didn't know him, she'd not spare him a second thought. But she did know him and he looked, if anything, pissed the fuck off._

" _Bet you were a big Alanis Morissette fan in the 90s huh?" she shone brighter, her imminent victory tasting sweet, if still untenable. "'Jagged Little Pill' was her best album even if she didn't know the definition of ironic."_

" _That was a great album," Byron chuckled at her kindly, his warmth exuding. It had been a long time since a guy was genuinely sweet to her. "You'll have to teach me some of sheet music to show my daughter, she'll go nuts." He was a nice guy, she thought. It was a shame what Negan was going to do to him if he actually tried to call her. Woe betide the man if he tried to kiss her. God that kind of power was intoxicating._

 _As he approached them, Mallory licked her bottom lip at Byron, reaching out and squeezing his arm in an obvious ploy of a gesture. She could hear Negan's mind from here, all his attention focussed on where she held Byron's arm. "No problem," she grinned back at her new friend, catching Negan's eye as he stormed past them and into his classroom, his face a picture of jealous wrath. "I'd love to show her. Come by next week's classes, huh? I'm sure I can squeeze you in," she batted her eyelashes coquettishly. "I don't mind a little late night studying if you're-"_

" _Hey Parker!" Negan called from inside his room, leaning through the door as he held onto the jamb. "You trying to hit on the fucking piano girl? Wouldn't bother man," he said, the smirk hiding thinly veiled contempt. "She's not really into what you're offering, if you get me. She's more interested in taking a lick at the cute little blondie down the hall from what I hear, ain't you, Princess? She must like short skirts and fake tits."_

" _Oh, fuck off Negan, go polish your ping pong balls," she bit back instantly, reddening at the cheeks in embarrassment at his crudeness, making her look like an idiot. He had to manipulate people for fun. The sick, sadistic bastard had done it now._

 _Mal looked back to Byron, who glanced at her awkwardly as if the air had been let out of him. "So, uh, I'll call you sometime next week, maybe. Nice to meet you, Mallory."_

 _She was left standing there in the hall, wrung out and alone, as the man practically sprinted away from her, his head hung low and shoulders slumped. Mallory looked back at Negan, dumbfounded at how he'd turned it around on her so easily._

" _I'd close your mouth if I were you," Negan said coolly, definitely sounding like he didn't give a fuck. "Before someone stuffs something inside it and you choke."_

 _Waiting for Byron to move out of sight, Mallory lunged forward and pushed Negan backwards into his own classroom viciously, sick of the sight of him, sick of his quick mind, sick of him walking around like he owned her and then not giving a damn until she had a chance at someone else, someone better._

" _You're a piece of work, you know that, right?" Mal kicked the door to his classroom shut behind her, nostrils flaring. "Two fucking weeks, two motherfucking weeks and you haven't even looked at me and suddenly you're what, scaring guys off me again?"_

" _It's been a week and a half, and don't pretend that little masterpiece theatre out there wasn't for my benefit," he replied, sitting on the corner of his desk nonchalantly. "You broke the fucking rules doing that, you know it as well as I do; you fucking broke the fucking rule. No other men. You agreed to it, so you got no leg to stand on here."_

" _I was only talking to the guy!" She protested, gesturing angrily. "I finally get a goddamn break, get some better paid work than this piece of crap job and find a sweet guy to flirt with and you're so fucking jealous that-'_

" _Jealous?" Negan interrupted. "You think I'm jealous of that asshole? Jealous of anything? No, no, no, I ain't fucking jealous, I'm protecting what's mine. You want to keep doing this, you don't go dropping your panties for every guy you see. Like I said," he said, getting as angry as she felt. "Your pussy comes for me and me only, Princess."_

" _Then why haven't I seen you in two weeks?!" she exclaimed._

" _Week and a half!" he protested back._

" _Two weeks, Negan!" She said, folding her arms over her chest. "Used to be every night, right? Three or four at the least and then you cut me off cold, even told me to get a fucking grip when I tried to come on to you. So, what's the deal, here? You don't want me anymore? You trying to avoid the break-up speech? Because I didn't take you as a guy without balls."_

 _He breathed heavily and there was his true, violent anger simmering under the surface, something darker that she had somehow not seen before._

" _You can come over here and feel how hard my dick is right now and then try and tell me I don't want to fuck your brains out," his hands gripped the edge of his desk until his knuckles turned white. "What you don't do is tell me what I want; more specifically, what I want from you."_

" _What do you want, then?" She licked her lips again, trying not to let her eyes flicker down to his crotch and see if it was bull. "Because I sure as shit don't know anymore. I don't like being treated like I'm nothing, Negan."_

 _Catching him glancing out the window of his classroom door before that heated gaze landed on her, Mallory squirmed. "Who I am doesn't fucking matter, does it? All you gotta know is what I'm not. I'm not going to hurt you, I am not forcing you do to anything here. No bullshit, Mal, I know there's something you're feeling right now and I can't fucking handle it. Not now, not ever, and I put my hand up to that." He raised both palms for a moment before they landed back on his knees. "So, I left you alone for a bit, so what?_ _Did I fuck you so good that you can't even go a week and a half without having my dick inside you?"_

 _Mallory swallowed thickly at the lump in her throat, her mouth suddenly dry. "Yes," she admitted begrudgingly, through gritted teeth. "You arrogant asshole, yes, yeah you did fuck me so damn good that it's not the same when I'm trying it on my own." Her jaw ticked in frustration. "You got me. Whatever it is that's making you stay away from me, whatever idea you've concocted in your head about me, just forget it – I just want to get fucked. You're driving me insane."_

 _Negan's eyes flared. "Tell you a secret, Princess? The shit I got going on in my head right now, the way I want to fuck you?" He shook his head and shifted his hips. "You sure you like it that way? Cos right now, I don't want to pour my bleeding heart all over your sweet, fake good girl act. I want the real Mallory, the one who's flirting with other men to get my attention, to get me to punish her. She's the one I wanna fuck into my desk right now. I'm not gonna stop, and I'm not gonna be gentle. I'll rip you apart at the seams until you break. I don't think you can do it, Princess."_

 _He looked so on edge, a vein in his arm pulsing rhythmically in beats. Those hands were clenched in barely concealed frustration, whether that was because of her or not, she wasn't sure. Negan was a man in need, though, that much became clear, avoiding her because he thought he was going to tear her in half with even a soft touch. Negan wanted that kind of cathartic release, needed it more than she did, to truly let go of whatever it was in his head and take control of her and her body._

 _Quietly, Mallory went over to his door and pulled the shutter down over the glass pane before turning the flimsy lock. She gave the handle a good wiggle, making sure it was secure enough from outside intrusion. After allowing herself be nervous about sex for the first time since her first time, Mal turned and looked at him with a serious face. He had laid down a gauntlet she wanted to pick up and shove back at him. "So, is there a safe word or do you wanna use the traffic light system?"_

 _Eyes catching the light of flames, he sprang from his position on the desk and instantly stalked towards her in giant, assured strides like a starved wild animal. "Traffic lights. Can you be quiet?"_

" _Probably not…" she admitted, reaching for his belt buckle and unclasping it slowly, threading the cracked leather through the loops of his pants. "But then I thought you were going to stuff something in my mouth anyway. Not like anyone's around to hear now." Need for him battled with her stubbornness to take it lying down._

 _When he cradled her head, threading his thick fingers through her hair and tugging her up, she wanted desperately to kiss him again. "Then snap your fingers if you want me to stop," he groaned, looking like he was about to snap too. "We all settled here? Because my dick could cut fucking glass right now."_

 _Considering her options, or at least faking it, Mal gave his belt one sharp tug until it was free. "I'm good with that scenario. Besides, you could always use this thing to keep me quiet," she said, her head still captivated of him fucking her mouth. "Gonna have to hold my hands back though. Not sure I can resist touching you for much longer."_

 _Negan groaned audibly, hauling her closer to him with clasping, greedy hands. "First thing tomorrow, I'm finding a second belt to wear. Versatile little fuckers. I could use them in so many ways..."_

 _Aching and needy, Mallory swallowed thickly as he got closer and closer to kissing her, a tantalising thirst she was desperate to quench. "Does your imagination never stop?"_

" _Not when it comes to you," he admitted, dropping his hands away from her and taking the belt instead. In a flash, he had spun her around and tied her hands behind her back roughly, yanking them to the small of her back until she couldn't do much more than wiggle her fingers. "That better?" he asked. Mal stole a glimpse of him over her shoulder admiring his handiwork, eyes fixated on her ass._

 _Her trapped hands hit Negan's crotch as he rubbed against her from behind, tucking her hair away frantically from her shoulder, getting as much of her skin exposed as he could. Mal's insides stirred at the feel of how hard and warm he was even through his pants and her skirt. "Oh God, you weren't lying," she groaned as he wrapped his arms around her torso, trapping her to his chest. Negan began to grope her breasts, tearing crazily at her button-down blouse until he could get under the cheap fabric, the flimsy seams tearing around her arm audibly. "Hey, I liked that blouse!"_

" _You can afford a replacement," he said huskily into her ear, his voice chillingly erratic. "Unless you want me to make you go pick up all those buttons one by one before I fuck you?"_

" _No…" Mallory hummed, feeling his hot breath skip across her neck and shoulder, the sensation making her skin tingle. It was amazing how easily she had forgotten what he'd said and done when she felt his cock on her ass and his hot breath on her milky pale skin. There was nothing in her head except a cloud of lust, kept alive by him resolutely refusing her any control._

 _The grab he made at her throat so suddenly and tight that she nearly squealed. His palm squeezed her just enough to restrict her moan of desire and fear, Negan pulling her back against his body with an arm tight as a rope around her waist that anchored her in place. "Don't think I forgot how many rules you broke. You're gonna make it up to me tenfold before I let you come."_

 _Without mercy, Negan sunk his teeth into her neck and sucked hard, shaking by the throat slightly as she jerked in pain and pleasure. Just as her thighs started to ache, he let the pressure off the column of her tender neck and licked a hot pattern over the deep bruise he had marked her with. She felt her body jerk at the sensations, her blood rushing as the onslaught stopped as soon as it had begun. "Get on your fucking knees," he ordered, reducing her legs as something akin to jelly. "Gonna stuff that fucking beautiful little mouth full…"_

 _Every part of her aching in pain and desire, Mallory automatically dropped to the cold floor, turning to look at him as she did. He looked even taller from her perspective on her knees, God-like in his composure; her lack of it seemed amplified. Lips watering as he pulled his cock free of his loosened pants, Mallory took no preamble and made no move to struggle as he tapped on her swollen lips with his cock._

 _He felt hotter and heavier in her mouth than she imagined, her lips stretching to accommodate him when he finally slid into her awaiting mouth. Mallory couldn't help but groan at the feeling, not when he hadn't let her do this to him much though she didn't know why when he was looking down at her like that. With one hand winding itself around her fiery red hair, he didn't give her time to get comfy and instead thrust shallowly into her willing, eager throat until she had to make herself relax and let him take over. His grunts were guttural, each swipe of her lips and tongue made him keen over and over. He fucked her mouth, taking his pleasure before hers, taking all that he could get. Even her eyes watered at the sight of him so crazed; Mallory would have given anything to climb into his mind. Not for nought though, there was more than a dull ache and rush of wetness between her thighs and she had to press them together for relief from the throbbing._

 _Sliding his cock out, she panted for breath in great gulps, licking her swelling, damp lips. Waiting wasn't tolerable, she had to get another taste and licked a hot, eager line up his shaft with her tongue, wanting to see him completely lose his mind. Mallory slid her eyes closed and sucked at his cock, moving her tongue in soft circles around the tip to drive him to the edge quickly._

 _Negan practically ripped her mouth off him and wrangled her hair roughly around a tight fist. "Oh no, no, you don't get off that fucking easily, Mallory, don't you think I don't know what you want a goddamn taste of. Greedy girl." He tsk-ed at her, yanking her up from her supine position on the floor and throwing her away. "You can't have it til you earned it, that's the goddamned game."_

" _How?" she asked croakily, stumbling a little as her feet hit the linoleum. "Please, I just want you, Negan, that's all. Fuck me."_

 _Voice laced with malice and lust in equal measure, the restraint he'd always shown her was waning thin underneath the veneer. He remained still, rooted in place and resolute, not touching a single part of her. "Bend over that fucking desk and pray to God I take it easy on you."_

 _Mallory jerked forwards as he pushed at her, manhandling her roughly until she was bent over the desk. He made quick work of her skirt, jerking the tight material up to her waist in an eagerness he'd not shown. "Negan!" she grunted as her chest hit the wood veneer. Knowing full well he'd see how wet her panties had become already, she prepared herself for his reaction. Knowing him, there was only one option…_

" _Holy fucking shitballs, Princess!" he exclaimed in rapid, avid glee from behind her. "You are fucking dripping and I haven't even touched your pretty little pussy yet. Oh, man, you really are greedy tonight, aren't you? It's taking all I got not to suck you bone dry. You want my dick, sweet peach? Want me to fuck you?"_

" _Yes!" she wailed, annoyed. Just as she thought he was going to expose her to the air, instead he yanked her underwear up so sharply that it pressed on her swollen clit. "JESUS!" she cried out, face sinking to the desk as her body keened. "Just fuck me already, it hurts..." Not being able to see him was the worst of it though; she longed to see his face as he looked at her aching body, dripping in lust for him all over the desk he'd gone on and on about. "Fuck me, you know you want to."_

 _It was infuriating how calm he sounded. "Think you'll find I said you gotta earn my dick," he replied, leaving her underwear bunched and rippled close to her cunt, just as torture. "You keep your hands where they are and take your punishment, and I'll make sure my sweet peach gets to come."_

 _Confused for a moment, it wasn't until he began to untie her hands that she knew what he wanted; he needed the belt for a more viscerally painful purpose. Her stomach twirled in excitement and nervousness, knowing that she could put a stop to it if she wanted to, that he would back away and rub her aching shoulders and make her come. But Mallory was nothing if not stubborn and knew she could take his hits, make him proud of the pain and pleasure she could stand to get his cock inside her._

" _Give me a colour, Mallory," he said a little more evenly still, trailing a loop of soft, old leather across her ass. Her hands felt the relief of not being bound but – God how she longed to touch him, to rip her underwear off and sink fingers inside herself or, better, ride him until she came._

" _Green," she replied after a moment of thought, shifting her hips to a better position. Her hands were still sitting at the small of her back like they hadn't even been untied._

" _That's my girl," Negan said. "Five for my Princess, okay? Count 'em out nice and loud." His voice sounded more broken and she wondered whether his look was cold or full of fire, whether he really wanted to hurt her or whether he wanted to pinken her skin, make a mark to match the bite on her shoulder. Not knowing which Negan was swatting her ass with a belt was killing her softly._

 _Mallory waited for a hit, even a trail of the belt along her skin. The silence consumed them and the room into one moment, her body veering on overdrive. He made her wait for it. And wait._

 _The sting was unexpectedly sharp as it landed across the thick part of her ass cheek. She cried out, feeling another rush of wetness soaking her pale pink underwear. "One…" Mal panted as she called out the number, turning her cheek to press against the cool wood of his desk._

" _Taking it like a fucking champ," Negan said proudly, running his calloused fingers over where he'd hit her. "You're fucking beautiful when you clench like that, Mallory. Do it again."_

" _T..two!" she called as he hit her, a little harder, a little more vicious, and she had to fist her sharp nails into her palm to keep from screaming. She gasped when he dealt another blow, harder still as her thighs and legs ached and burned. Her voice waivered when she called out the number. "Three!"_

 _Negan's lips and hands descended on her reddened ass, soothing the burn almost as instantly as he created it. His fingers edged at the sodden fabric between the lips of her cunt, making her cry out and mewl in pleasure, sobbing her pain at the touch that wasn't a touch. "You have no fucking idea, I never dreamed…" he whispered into the red-hot skin on her cheek, just barely audible to her. "Two more, Princess, two more nice smacks for me. You can do it, you're my fucking warrior."_

 _Mal steeled herself this time, emboldened by his words. The bite of the leather struck her even harder and she couldn't help but cry out in sheer pain, her body jerking forward, rippling up her spine. "Agh, Negan! Four!" She sobbed again, pussy twitching softly._

" _Shhh, shhh…" he soothed again, pressing his crotch into her thigh, she supposed for his own relief as much as hers. It did nothing to stem her deep need to be filled, it did nothing but give her will another test, another poke to keep going. "I'm gonna end up coming over your ass if you say my name like that again. Colour?"_

" _Oh God, green, so fucking green." She groaned and sagged a little, mouth dry._

" _One more, I promise, fucking promise. That's it." Instead of the smack she was expecting, he unceremoniously yanked her right leg up until her knee rested on his desk, displayed for his pleasure. "My fucking Queen…" he groaned behind her, spreading her as wide as her hips could stretch._

 _With a loop of excitement settling in her gut, Mallory realised exactly where he wanted to place the last hit._

 _A flash of a second later and she felt her whole body convulse into spasms, jerking wildly as he smacked that damn belt over her clothed cunt, the wet cotton hitting the leather and grazing her clothed clit. She bit back a scream as pain and pleasure flooded her from spine to toes, back arching, wetness spreading down her trembling thighs. "Fuck…five..." she panted, breathing in oxygen like she was dying._

 _Negan didn't say a damn word to her. There was a clatter as he dropped the belt on the floor and ripped her underwear off, the fabric in pieces. He thrust his cock deep into her tight, hot pussy, ruthless and unrelenting. "Mallory," he groaned, fucking her roughly, pulling her arms back enough to sting her joints. He was harder than she'd felt before, his cock stretching her body to new limits, to edges of pleasure and pain. "Never… so fucking gorgeous…" he stuttered. "Fuck!"_

 _Gasping as he fucked her, deep and hard and remorseless as he had sworn he would be. This was what she'd been missing, what she needed, his cock buried deep inside her, wrenching every bit of searing sweet pleasures from her like no other person ever had. "Yes…" she managed to groan out, her pussy still clenching and unclenching from the hit of his belt, on a painfully thin edge, waiting to be toppled. "Please, please, Negan…"_

" _Fucking come, come…" he cried out himself, pounding her hard enough into the desk so it wiggled in place. The filthy slaps of skin on wet skin echoed as her body bounced._

 _Blood rushed, coursing in her veins as she came around him, clamping in the tightest of squeezes around his steely hard cock. Her wetness gushed and she cried out again and again, her body convulsing in overdue sensation of wrought iron heat. Negan wrung her body dry as he nearly fucked her through the cheap desk._

 _Roaring behind her, he pounded into her harder and harder, punishingly fierce with his thrusts until she felt him spill inside her, coating her cunt in his come as he called out her name. He stayed buried inside her, pressing grateful, hot kisses to her sore spots, her skin tingling. Leaning over her, he thrust shallowly until he slumped on top of her, completely spent inside her._

" _Shitting fuck…" he said, sounding as exhausted as she felt. He released her hands from the small of her back and Mallory sagged boneless onto the desk. She could still feel him inside her, her cunt giving tiny fluttering squeezes. "That's fucking perfect," he muttered, stroking her arms softly, the feeling coming back into them as she stretched out her limbs._

 _There wasn't much for Mallory to do but lie there until the feeling came back, pins and needles prickling when it did. As Negan pulled out of her and zipped himself back up, she could feel his come dripping a little out of her. "Ugh," she said, whimpering slightly as she turned her head to look at him finally. "Can't move."_

" _Good. Don't." His voice sounded tired but almost as dark. Obediently, she stayed in place and heard a very familiar shuttering click. "That is one for the old spank bank. Thank you, Princess, your contribution is going right up the top of my favourites list."_

 _Getting up on her forearms, she let her prone leg slip back down as she turned around to lie flat on his desk. That was enough moving. "Did you just take a picture of me on your phone?"_

" _Makes the memories last longer, don't it?" He replied, stealing a glance down at his phone. "You really are fucking beautiful with your pussy all full of my come like that. I am never deleting that shot."_

 _Arguing – even if she had the energy for it – was futile with Negan and his desire to see her like that. "Can you help me up at least?"_

" _Hmm?" he replied distractedly. "Oh sure, here," he muttered, pocketing his phone gleefully. She didn't expect him to scoop her up into his waiting arms but he did just that, grinning lasciviously at the sight of her. Mallory sunk into his arms, not thinking too hard about the consequences or the danger of what they'd just done. He didn't look anywhere near as fucked out as she did, his skin a little shiny from exertion and hair barely mussed. Mal was a wreck. She sagged into his chest, still captured in his strong arms. Negan perched himself on his desk with a pained groan, settling her on his lap. He had to be just as tired beneath the surface, she thought as he tried to tug her clothes back into place. Mal could tell that his heart wasn't in it. "Sorry I ruined all your nice clothes. I should have made you strip for me. This shirt is beyond fucking repair."_

" _Worth it," she replied quietly, watching him with intent. "I gotta get home looking like this, though. Maybe nobody will see though it's my fucking luck some cop pulls me over."_

" _You can borrow my jacket, Princess." He said, idly playing with her hair and kissing her neck tenderly like he refused to stop touching her. "We're going back to your place tonight so I can make the last two weeks up to you. Tit for tat, as the fucking saying goes."_

 _Her face warming at his attention, she quietly leaned up and captured his tender lips in a grateful kiss, one hand on the back of his head. Any showing of sincere care was the sweetest of gestures from Negan. "You don't have to do that. I was the idiot."_

" _And I was an ass," he said, pressing another hot kiss to her neck in supplication. "I keep my fucking promises and I promised to keep you satisfied. You haven't been satisfied, therefore I fucked up. And I am going to make it up to you, no fucking arguments. What do you need me to do to make it better, Mallory?" He certainly sounded sincere._

 _The offer was enticing and she figured this was his way of showing her he cared after the pain and domination; her ass was still sore and pink, her thighs and arms aching from being stretched to their limit, her bite mark stinging hot. "I want a shower. And I want to sit on your face again, I liked that. I missed that," she grinned lazily, her fingers tangling up in his hair._

 _Negan laughed again and she could see tension falling out of him, melting a winter to spring. "Sounds like my kind of Heaven, spending all night between those sweet milky thighs…" he kissed her again. "I hope you're okay with me coming inside you. I couldn't think about stopping…" the question sounded important to him but he still licked his lips, like the idea of it was turning him on all over again._

 _Not wanting to worry him, Mal nodded softly and smiled in reply. "It's okay. I kind of… liked it. I discover a lot of things with you."_

 _Negan's arms around her tightened almost imperceptibly, a whole new world of sexual desire opening for them both. "You drive home, Princess, I'll follow you. In for a penny, in for a pound."_

 _He had kept his promise and more besides, wrapping her in his leather jacket lest anyone caught a glimpse at the mess he'd made. Mallory felt something, though, a spark of something inside her that she would ignore again and again in favour of his touch, in favour of his attention to her desire. She wasn't sure how it had come to be that a brutal man would be so tender, so caring and concerned with what he had done to make her come like that._

 _As she drove back to her apartment in her clapped-out car, she found herself glancing in her mirrors every few moments to check that it wasn't a fantasy, her mind completely encompassed on Negan. She'd had intense, passionate relationships but none compared to their chemistry. One spark ignited another and another between the two until they flamed. Her fingers twitched on the steering wheel as she drove into the dark of night with her toxic lover trailing not-so-far behind her. Unable to guess what was in his mind, not even knowing his real life made her want him all the more._

 _When she spent all night with his tongue licking every thread of pleasure he could from her, that was when she felt most alive. Mallory would thread her fingers into his thick hair and became exactly as he called her; the fucking Queen. She couldn't imagine ever tiring of him, despite the arms-length he kept her at. He could dangle her there forever as far as she was concerned; even a taste of something as sweet as Negan would be worth the burns from his flames._

* * *

Freezing cold in the middle of the night with only scant blankets around her to keep her warm in her 'room', Mallory shivered and shuddered. Wiping angry tears off her cheeks as her head refused to stop turning around and around the shittiness of her life; of Negan, of the torture and hope he punished and tortured her with in tandem. It might have been a hopeless endeavour to worm her way into his good graces by toeing the line – it was more than apparent that she couldn't bite her tongue at him.

Keeping another promise, he had sent a random person with some things for her, items that were necessities before the apocalypse; clothes and hot food, bed sheets and some soap and toothpaste. Mallory would be damned if she took any of the so-called gifts. They were little more than a way to keep her at his mercy for scraps of warmth, for meals he forced on her. Stubbornness did nothing to stop the hunger in her gut or the cold of her hands from driving her insane but they were _hers_ ; her pain wasn't his property on lay-away.

It wasn't until she heard the other part of her mental torture begin though that she remembered his cruel taunt.

Horribly familiar groans and creaks sounded, his voice just inaudible enough for her to wonder what sweet nothings he told his wife as he screwed her into a bed. It didn't do much for her pride that when he groaned in pleasure, she pressed a cold hand between her thighs. Her pussy was slick and wet, body betraying her mind and heart. She couldn't stop herself as she felt his hand on her throat in her memory, his beautiful destruction of her body. Her fingers slid over herself as he laughed from behind the wall; he would know what she was doing. He always knew.

Mallory cried her gasps of sordid pleasure into her soft pillow, crying as she got herself off to the sound of him fucking another woman. She despised the way her thighs quaked at hearing his laughter and the timbre of his voice. Her tongue practically tasted the salty bitterness of him a million times over. Mal refused to let him take her own body away from her, to take her autonomy and make her his own; she'd never give that up. Not again.

Never again.

The noises stopped long after she gave up her own orgasm, forcing her hand away from her body before she could come. Mal broke down in silent tears of anger and frustration that streaked hotly down her red cheeks. She couldn't face walls and locks and bars, couldn't face the loneliness of being away from human hearts beating and Negan had done both at the same time and made sure she knew what she was missing out on. Loudly. He wasn't wrong about his wife being loud in bed.

Long after the noises of their sex stopped, in the black of the night, Mallory rose from the ashes of her broken spirit. She washed her face in the tiny washroom, the moon as the only source of light to see her own face by in a rusted mirror. She soothed her cheeks and wiped the taste of him out of her mouth, spitting it out with gusto.

Her mind poked at her, her fingers slipping into the back pocket of her pants, reaching for the last piece of her sanity. Peter had been kind to save the picture for her, she realised, though he had no conception of what it truly meant to her. The black and white waves of her first – and only – sonogram soothed her as she looked down at the worn-out ultrasound photo. There was no longer any deep desire within her to see that child's imagined face; the need for her unborn baby to be returned to her had long, long past. Instead, its picture remained on her as a victory now, the only thing she had left to dangle over Negan's head just before the executioner's sword cleaved it off.

One day, she'd tell him what he'd abandoned to rot away, but it wouldn't be before she was ready. Mallory wanted it to eat away at him like nothing ever would so that finally – blessedly – she would be _free._

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. A review or comment is much appreciated (x-posted on AO3)


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Mallory had heard long ago that you knew someone was insane when they repeated the same actions over and over again, expecting different results each time. Insane people were all around in the beginning; their ridiculous ideas never panned out the way they thought they would. She'd seen mothers hand over their children to strangers, people running upstairs instead of downstairs to get away from Biters, she'd seen men who thought the end of the world made them more adept at shooting a damn machine gun into herds. Those were the truly _crazy_ people, those who thought that they were right and were doing right. Mal saw how fear made you crazy, one day or another. Normal people were the ones who went off the deep end first, hurling headlong into a pit of irrationality. There were no miracles in the apocalypse.

Insanity just wasn't an option anymore. Crazy got you killed quickly, viciously, brutally – it got your guts ripped out from your abdomen and eaten while you died in agony. That's why the world was different now, Mal thought, the crazy had gotten people killed so the only living left were those who sounded increasingly, almost disturbingly, sane. They talked crazy and yet the plans made a sick sense: bars and locks that kept you from escaping also kept you safe, supply runs that might kill you would also keep you from dying of starvation, walking around the woods found hidden goldmines but drew herds towards your presence with little means of escape. Other people kept you safe but got you killed too; that was what she'd learnt above everything. Crazy infected as much as the virus had.

The fact that those safe hands keeping her from being torn apart by Biters, from desperate and dangerous groups of survivors belonged to her psychopathic ex-lover didn't shock her. He was, if nothing, a determined man leading an army of people who were seeking a saviour, someone to pray to now that God had deserted them. Negan had been determined before and was even more so now, pulling every trick in the book to get what he wanted out of the world and more on top. He knew he was crazy, he revelled in it but Negan brought out Mal's crazy too.

Sleep had never come easily, if at all. Her limbs and back burned from being tensed all night, her skin almost blue with the cold draft of concrete and brick around her, encapsulating her in their chill. The room he had left her locked inside was little more than a cell with a stack of untouched clothes and an uneaten meal she wasn't going anywhere near. Her crazy was stubborn.

Mallory had ripped the crusted red bandage off her head in the night, letting the soft throb of blood in her veins keep her awake and on edge enough to be alert, unable to relax, unable to stop her head from circling plans and ideas, enough to keep her away from sanity. While Negan's patented method of intimidation, reasonable negotiation and manic violence wouldn't work with her, he knew isolation would. He had to keep her away from other people, people who could taste her thirst to see his regime toppled and Negan on his knees. So, he would probably keep her locked away as long as he could until she was kissing his feet like the rest of them, kneeling in the dirt. Mal wondered how many he had murdered to gain the loyalty and faith of the rest.

Sitting cross-legged on the edge of her bed, Mallory watched for the sun rising, wanting to hear people talking below her, maybe even see the shadow of footsteps outside her cell. He made her wait. It felt like hours after light did finally cast itself into the room that his obnoxious knocking came at the door, shaking her from her stupor where she imagined his throat cut and gushing red blood over her shiny boots. Living in fantasy.

"Shave and a haircut!" he sang through the wood, knocking with a thud at every word. She didn't call back and heard his fake sigh. "Come on, Princess. Let's try it again. Shave…and a hair…cut."

The childishness astounded her, setting her head back against the concrete wall. "If you want to come in," she called back, bristling. "Just fucking come in!"

"Not until you say it!" Negan effused. "Not unlocking the door 'til you play along. How about one last try, then you can wait another day." He threatened, knowing a full day locked inside would drive her even more crazy. The knocking was booming, echoing in her room in intimidation. "Shave and a haircut!"

"Two bits," she spat through her teeth, rolling her eyes at nothingness.

Like magic, the lock unclicked and there he was: clean, hair combed and a little slicked back, a tray in his hand with… oh God. He was _pure_ evil. "Good morning starshine!" Negan beamed brightly, "The Earth says hello! Sleep well?"

"Is that bacon?" Mal asked, eyes wide as she strained to see what he had on the tray. Her mouth was watering already from the smell. "How do you have bacon?!"

"Oh, I am positively radiant this morning, Princess, thank you ever so much for asking." Negan stepped inside and shoved the tray on the desk, next to her last untouched meal, kicking the door closed behind him. "Hunger pain working out well for you? I thought to myself 'I bet she hasn't touched a goddamn thing' and look!" Negan gestured to his unclaimed offerings, the soup in the bowl cold and congealed, bread hard as a rock and twice as dry. "Am I fucking psychic or I just know you too fucking well?"

"I wasn't hungry," she replied quietly, eyes slipping between her breakfast and her jailor. "I'm not hungry."

"Sure you are! Even I can't remember when you last ate. Caroline says you barely had a thing last time she saw you. Don't it just eat at you, Princess?" He sat on the corner of the desk, across from where Mallory was rooted to her spot on the bed. "Pun in-fucking-tended."

Her gut squirmed at his words. They twisted her around in more hunger, growling, her mouth still watering from the smell of the bacon alone. Mal really couldn't remember the last meal she'd had. That damn plate of bacon and eggs looked warm and inviting, looked real and fresh. "I'm fine."

Negan frowned and shrugged simultaneously, picking up a piece of bacon just to wave temptingly in her face. "You sure? I even got them to do it extra crispy, how you like it. Eggs over easy, nice and melty, toast with extra butter. I remember how you lick it off, the more butter the better it is. Used to drive me crazy watching you eat like that, sucking the grease off your fingers…" he licked his lips too. "I even brought you fucking coffee that don't taste like burned horse shit. Just eat it, Mallory. All salty and sweet crunch, that was you. Never doing anything by half."

She licked her lips and instantly regretted the action because he knew he'd won the first battle. Without a word and with a grin on his face, he turned and picked up the tray from the desk, depositing it beside her on the mattress, though he kept the stolen piece of crispy bacon for himself and took great satisfaction from eating it loudly in front of her.

"Thank you," Mallory replied stubbornly, taking a piece from the tray and eating. She could have cried all over again, tasting it. The meat a little salty, a little smoky, crisp at the edges and just the good side of greasy. Flavour exploded across her eager tongue: it was the best thing she'd tasted in her life, better than canned pudding, better than that time she had managed to hunt a small deer and shared it among her group. "It's fine," she said with a shrug, looking at him.

He laughed a rich laugh and ate his piece in one go, licking his fingertips clean. "I take that as a giant fucking compliment coming from your stubborn ass, Princess. You love it."

The way he watched her eat, with both hands on his thighs and his gaze never wavering from her lips? It was as if he was trying to taste it all again for the first time through her tongue, through the way that she really did lick the butter dripping from the toast. Negan looked at her, enraptured and hazy eyed.

"You didn't answer my question," she said after a mouthful, feeling less and less like this was about her being hungry and more like him watching her obey his command. "How do you have bacon?"

"There's a colony out west a few miles, they raise the pigs. I just get to mosey on down every once in a while, take a few and they keep the rest for themselves. I just lucked out that one of the cooks in the kitchen here actually knows his shit." Negan winked lasciviously. "Best damn thing you ate in months, right? You know, I don't go giving my meat to just anybody."

Mallory swallowed and a lump fell in her stomach, the hunger gone to be replaced by a sick sense of ownership. "Your meat," she parroted, disgusted. "Is everything a joke to you?"

He laughed again, slapping one of his palms across his thigh. "Jesus fucking Christ, I love it when you get prissy. Mallory, Mallory, it ain't my fucking dick. It's just bacon and eggs, Princess, don't get your panties in a wad about it. You're hungry so I fed you something. That is what civilised people do, right? Take 'em in, give 'em clothes and food and a fucking warm bed. You are the first one in history to throw all of it back at my face."

Her words to Peter echoed again; play along, play the game, bite your tongue and kiss his boots. She thought it was dumb fucking advice and easier said than done.

"It's a nice meal. Thank you," she enunciated each word deliberately, straining to hold in her sarcasm and ire. "Does this mean I can go back to the general population today, Your Highness?"

"Majesty," he answered, licking his bottom lip as she ate her toast. "Kings get called Majesty, not Highness."

"Excuse me, Your Majesty," she said, sitting up straighter at being corrected. The slow warmth of her body getting nourished blossomed as she ate her meal ravenously, completely forgetting his taunting. "Am I getting out of this room today, Your Majesty?"

Negan was still watching her eat as he stomach got fuller and fuller and she became satiated, she forgot to even care about his gaze. "I like you, Mallory, you are to-the-fucking-point. Alright, I'll lay it all out on the fucking table," he said, smacking his palm on the desk beneath him. "Cos I do, you know… like you. I got me a big raging hard-on for you, mmhmm, baby it was all I could do to fuck Amber into a coma last night. Don't think I didn't hear you through the wall too, whimpering like you're dying…" he chuckled and put up a hand of surrender when she glared dangerously. "Don't look at me like that, like I've done anything worse than you have. Why you think you're still alive? Cos you're so fucking useful to me here, in a fucking locked room doing shit all to help? You ain't even letting me screw you."

"I am not becoming your wife," she spat, full of revulsion. "I am not saying it again, Negan. You know that."

"Like I'd bother asking you," Negan muttered in reply. "No-pety, no-pety noooo. I'm saying that I like you and as much as it fucking pains me to keep you in here, and it fucking does because it's a goddamn waste, it is for your own fucking good."

"Putting me in a locked cell with a guard dog is for my own good?" Mallory chuckled. "You know, that's real good bullshit, Negan, one of your best efforts yet. I give it a nine out of ten for ingenuity."

He laughed along with her too, leaning back on his hands. "No, no, seriously. Look at all the shit you got yourself messed up in already. Getting kidnapped, conspiring with your boyfriend, killing a Biter with your boot, having fucking panic attacks at the sight of my bedroom and breaking down in front of a piano? You're a walking disaster zone, Princess, you always fucking have been. Spending your life stumbling from one chaos zone to the next. Hate to tell you the secret but you know what you are? A fucking liability. You're a pain in my ass."

"Liability?" she said, hurt deeper than she wanted to admit. "In case it's skipped your attention, dead people are eating living people. Chaos is kinda what we live in now, isn't it? It's hardly my fault that all this motherfucking shit keeps happening to me."

Negan shook his head. "No, no, no, no, no, Princess. There is chaos and there's chaos. You gotta get in line with me here or you're just gonna get someone killed, one way or another. For all I know," he looked at her pointedly. "Those pretty little hands have already squeezed the life out of some guy twice your size because he, I don't know, touched something you wanted."

Mallory's eyes flashed and she looked away, sipping up the taste of unburnt coffee. "No."

That refusal was enough for Negan to jump from the desk and slide onto his knees in front of her, his eyes manic and dark again, his face crinkled in mirth. She refused to move, refused to look again. "You did, didn't you? Holy-fucking-shit, I can't believe my little peach committed cold blooded murder!" He put his hands on her knees, squeezing them excitedly, like he wanted to pull them apart and sink back into her. "And here was me, thinking that piss-streak boyfriend of yours was talking a load of crap to try and scare me!" Mal looked back up at him sharply, shock funnelling through her fogged brain. "Ah, fuck, I owe him a free swing at me now. Maybe we won't tell him that, huh?"

Peter was a dead man, deader than a dead thing rotting in the dirt. "He told you?" Mallory said with a quiet fieriness, all of her anger and hate now directed at her friend. Former friend.

"Wouldn't stop bragging about you. Said some sick gropey little fucker stabbed his sister so you jumped the asshole, squeezed the life out of him with your bare hands. That's murder, baby girl, that is stone cold murder. Brings a tear to my eye." Negan smirked and stood up, his hands still on her knees. "You and me are gonna get along great, liability or not. I wanna hear the whole story."

Mallory could see it now. Peter had told Negan the story he knew, the version he knew. She had wrapped her hands around a man's throat and watched the light dim from his eyes before she'd put a knife through his eye socket. What Peter had missed out was the sick thrill she got from it; a vindication, a justice she'd felt surging through her spine when she pierced his eyeball and watched the vitreous goo flow out among the blood. She had loved it and hated it in equal measure and felt nothing but emptiness afterwards. The crunch of his bone would remain in her mind forever.

"So, what, I killed one man?" she said, her voice hollow. "Who here hasn't? It's how life works now, you take a life or you die."

"Exactly! Now you're getting it, Princess!" He grinned and clicked his fingers snapping wildly. "Arat!". Mallory was confused until her guard dog walked in, carrying Lucille in her gloved hand. Negan took the bat from his less-than-glamourous assistant and hauled it over his shoulder. "Now you're learning some fucking lessons about how shit works. You and I are going out on a field trip today, Princess. Just like I promised. We're gonna spread the gospel according to Negan."

Mallory wrapped her pale hands around her coffee cup, eyes slipping shut for a moment as the dull ache in her head turned full on into a deep-seated throb. He'd promised to show her his colonies, teach them a lesson because of her and her words. "What if I refuse?" She asked, looking back up at him, trying to be patient and penitent.

"I can't force you to come but uh…" Negan leaned over her and whispered beneath his breath. "I don't think Arat likes being your babysitter. So, if you don't want her to come in here and slit your throat and make a mess of my mattress, I'd come and join me for the day. I ain't half as pretty but at least I won't kill you, at least not without warning. Cos I like you too much."

Exhaustion settled into her bones, though it was marginally better than being starving and exhausted simultaneously. "I'm not exactly eager to get my throat slit by your right-hand girl," she muttered, crossing her arms protectively over her chest. "But why would I go with you just to watch you kill some poor bastard? You already made your point to me, I get it: give me half your shit or die."

"You still need the air and the exercise, cooped up in here all night long with nothing to do but yourself…" he said, pulling her chin upwards gently with two fingers. "And I need to show you. You need to see, to understand why I got no more places for chaos and liability here, Mallory. Falling in line is the only way to live with me. And you will fall into line…"

"I know you have a thing for breaking women," she dared to whisper back, her eyes hardening. "But you're never going to break me, Negan."

He just grinned at the challenge. "You might not wanna test me on that. I've done it before and I can do it just as easily again."

* * *

 _Nothing made sense anymore…_

 _Epic elegies could be written about his body. She could map every strain in his arms as he pinned her wrists to the bed. Mallory tasted on the air when he was about to wrap his hands around her soft hips and tell her to meet him in a supply closet, because they were nothing if not a giant cliché. He could smile at her in a thousand different ways and she'd instantly know what he was thinking about, what he wanted, who he wanted. The answer was almost always her._

 _He could shift her mood from pissed off and exhausted to relaxed with a few kisses and lewd words whispered in her ear. He loved doing that; coming up to her when she thought she was alone, tilting her head and talking for five minutes non-stop about how he loved the curve of her ass while his hand was down the front of her pants, working to get her off._

 _He just seemed to love making her feel good. It didn't make sense._

 _Not that it mattered what he said. Whenever she had gone to return the sentiment in kind, he would instead kiss the air from her lungs and drag her away from trying. Mallory went to sleep every night – with or without him there – feeling like she could conquer vast worlds and have them kiss her feet. He was rough but sweet, kind but tough. She gave as good as she got but he didn't ever care much about his own pleasure when instead he could fuck her brains out in the back seat of her shitty little car and still make her come twice before he gave in._

 _Her naked body was entwined in his white cotton sheets, draped as she was over his chest, watching the soft tic of his throat. Not a day had gone by that the man hadn't been all over her since their argument; his eyes roamed over her body at work during the evening and his hands mapped the same paths at night with his lips and tongue following after._

 _Whatever she had expected from him, though, it wasn't this softness, this part of him she'd never thought she'd see in another million years. It was strange to think that he was the same man as the one she'd been told was a bully, was vicious and cruel who cared about nobody but himself. He had pulled a cruel trick or two on her when she had done the same to him first, but nothing more. It didn't make sense._

" _Negan?" she asked quietly, looking up at his jaw._

" _Whatever you're fucking thinking about, Mallory," he growled sleepily, his fingers lazily tracing that same soft curve of her ass. "Stop it."_

" _But-"_

" _Stop. Fucking Christ, woman, turn the damn brain off for a moment and enjoy the eye of the storm." She didn't know whether he meant her or himself._

 _Mallory sighed softly and resettled back on his chest, her arm on his stomach sprawled out. "You mean you're not done for the night?" she turned and teased, pressing a kiss to his sternum. "I thought you brought me out to your house because you just wanted to play scrabble and realised you were gonna lose so you fucked me instead."_

 _Negan laughed tenderly in reply, placing his flat palm against her ass cheek. Her flesh was still warm from the smack of his hand against her a half hour earlier. "You don't wanna play me at scrabble. I'll beat your ass hands-down, Princess."_

" _You already beat my ass," Mallory grinned, placing another kiss on his collarbone. "Literally."_

" _Yeah, I fucking did, didn't I?" he said, palming her a little more roughly. "I thought the belt was nice but ain't nothing like watching your caboose jiggle for me. You just about ripped my dick off, you came that hard."_

 _She still blushed from time to time at his crudeness; his brain without filter, instead letting all his thoughts trickle down to his mouth. She knew where she stood. "And whose fault was that?"_

 _Negan groaned as Mallory kissed his neck with hot bee-sting kisses, teeth nipping. "All mine. Fucking proud of it too." He lifted his other hand to her ass and hauled her onto his lap, draping her aching body so she was lying along the length of him. "You trying to fucking start something again with that mouth of yours?"_

 _Mallory said nothing but kissed and sucked along his neck as he kneaded her sore ass with wide palms, his fingers dipping under the white cotton sheets._

 _Part of her still couldn't believe she was in his house; it seemed mythical and imaginary but… it didn't make sense either. It was so much more domestic than she thought he'd like. Every wall was a tone of beige or cream, accents of girly stuff in random places, peppered with knick knacks and ceramic figures. Mal had ignored the wedding pictures on the mantelpiece and even more pictures on the walls, lest her guilt and curiosity drive him mad. His home was neater and tidier than she expected too; she hadn't expected perfection but this house was so far removed from her expectations that it made her pause._

 _Ever since he had hauled her into his car and driven them here, a million questions had been on her mind: where was his wife? Was this overstepping a boundary she wouldn't like? How long was it going to be before he kicked her out?_

 _But she couldn't ask. He'd made those rules, drawn his lines and stuck them out resolutely. She only had the answer to the first question after she took ten whacks of his hand to her bare ass on his couch. Mal had been told that his wife was 'away at her parents' and that had been that. 'End of discussion, now grab the headboard and scream for me when you come.'_

 _She thought it was natural to wonder what the Hell his deal was with his wife; Negan had said that she knew about his affair but for all he'd told her, that was bullshit with more crap on top of it. A lie upon a lie upon another lie._

 _Instead, she'd garnished details inside his bedroom in their post-sex haze. It was a damn expensive house, as far as she could tell of it. There was real cornicing, and a cherry wood bed frame that couldn't have been cheap either so the house oozed a kind of class and warmth that just wasn't… Negan. He was the thing that didn't make sense, he was the thing that stuck out as odd. It was like he'd maxed out his credit card buying a life. His happy face adorned the walls, his watches were in the nightstand, but it was an otherness. She wouldn't have picked this place for him._

 _Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft gasp from her lips, his fingers having found her warm, wet centre and begun probing interestedly. "Negan…" she moaned, writhing on his hand as he sunk two thick fingers into her. "God, Negan..."_

" _That's it, Princess," he said, the sleepiness gone to be replaced with want and need and desire. "Hot as fuck when you say my name. You're fucking wet again, making my dick all hard. All your fault."_

 _Suddenly and all at once, the soft stretch of his fingers was gone. His arms wrapped around her instead and he hauled himself up to lie back against the head board. "You always hard?" she asked hazy eyed as he tugged part of the white sheet away from her shoulder to replace it with his lips. "Is it like a permanent state?"_

" _You wish. I'd be brain dead by now from lack of blood flow north. Takes a lot of fucking blood for my huge dick, Princess. S'why I get so fucking stupid around you. Taking risks because you wear those tight fucking jeans to work…" he growled. "How's a man meant to do anything but think about fucking you from behind when you wear shit like that."_

 _Without preamble, he went back to kiss and suck hard on her shoulder, drawing all thought out of her head. Mallory moaned and writhed in his lap, running her fingers through his hair as he divested her of the sheets. "We already went twice. You can't be hard again already…" she said breathily as his lips found her breasts._

" _I could always stick it inside you and you could tell me if it's hard or not," he groaned in frustration, voice on the edge of annoyance. "You fucking complaining about you making my dick hard?"_

" _No, no!" she said, anchoring his head to her chest again to get his mouth where she wanted it. "It's just… I'd understand if I had to leave. I don't know… fuck… I don't know the rules here and it's driving me crazy."_

 _He wrenched his head away from her chest and gave her a confused look. "You think I'm waiting to kick you out at an appropriate time? Like three fucks and you're out?"_

 _Mal struggled for the right words and Negan gripped her brutally hard. "I… well… I don't know! This is your place, not mine."_

 _She could feel his roar of frustration through his chest as he pulled her back from him, his hands grabbing her ass to pull her harder onto his lap. "Just fucking stop thinking, Mallory! It ain't rocket science. Turn off the fucking motormouth brain and let me touch you." He mashed his lips to hers in a kiss, his arms tugging her back until she was pressed hard against him. Her hands scrabbled for purchase as Negan rucked his hips up. "Let me make you feel good."_

 _Panting for breath, she helped him tug off the sheets in a haze of crumpled fabric. "Yes," she moaned more audibly, free of the cage. His hands were everywhere, becoming more tender and gentle the more he got to touch her. She felt him sigh into her neck as he held her naked body to his tightly, his fingertips sliding along her spine from top to bottom. Mallory's skin broke into fevered shivers from the motion and she cried out as he suddenly entered her without warning._

 _Her nails sank into his arms as Negan let the weight of her settle into his lap, his own breathing as laboured and ragged as hers. His hands splayed out across her shoulder blades, fingertips twitching to hold her tighter. "Okay?" he asked brokenly, finally looking up at her._

 _Negan's eyes were softer and sweeter, the way he'd been after he'd thrashed his belt over her backside in his classroom. Her mind fell free of the noise and wonder about his house, about his wife, and was fixed on the feeling of him filling her cunt and stretching her wonderfully to the breaking point. "Yeah, yeah…" she said, letting herself relax as he relaxed, breathing as he breathed. "Feels so good. Deep." Mallory's hands came up to encapsulate his face, stroking the stubble around his once-smooth chin._

 _He smiled dirtily and kissed her in a slow burn. "You could say that," he said, the smile never leaving his lips as he lifted her up effortlessly and brought her back down on his cock again in a smooth motion. Both moaned in time as he did it again and again, until Mallory took over and was riding him lazily. Both were too exhausted to do more than ruck slowly into one another, eyes resting on each other in a burning need that built layer upon layer. Mal had tasted his sparks, she'd felt the burn of his passion but this lazy fucking, this need for human contact that made her mind blank was different. It was new. It was frightening._

 _He pulled her down onto him harder and deeper. Negan's normally incessant motor-mouth wasn't running, her usual rampant mind quiet and fixated. Both were simply two people seeking the comfort of an unspoken bond, not talking, not thinking. Negan's lips bit and kissed at her jaw as she rode him with her hands and fingers tugging at his hair._

 _Outside, the winds stormed, rain pelted the window like bullets when humidity broke in the lush warmth of Virginia. He snaked a thumb onto her clit and rubbed her teasingly, making her body keen for more, drawing her hips faster and deeper still onto him. Negan groaned and fucked up hard into her, Mal crying out sharply when he went too hard._

" _Shh…" he panted into her ear, seeking forgiveness as her body relaxed again from the sharpness of his thrust. "It's alright, Mallory. You can take it, just look at me."_

 _His tongue licked a hot stripe up her neck as her sweat rolled down, like he wanted to taste the pleasure he was giving her. The thumb on her clit worked in soft, torturous circles, never changing its rhythm until Mallory broke apart around him fast and hard, seizing in pleasure. "Negan!"_

 _He didn't stop thrusting gently up into her, hand gripping her thigh as he did. His hands. God, she really could write operas about his hands. She could sing their praises and cry out at their desires. She could do anything she wanted to, now that she had him as much as he had her._

 _Negan drew her out from her orgasm, biting her shoulder as he did. Mal could tell he was closer to coming than he wanted to be, through that tension in his back. She didn't know much of his life beyond his bed but she knew the way his muscles contracted, how his voice broke when she got him just right. There was a world unexplored but what she knew, at least she knew was real. He couldn't lie to her about the desperate way he thrust his hips up into her body, about how he bit her skin and marked her as his every damn time. Her shoulders were relief maps of their affair._

" _Come for me," she said as her body felt the burn, over-sensitized. "Come inside me."_

 _He roared his released as he thrust up into her one more time, his body shuddering harder. She could feel him come inside her, sticky and hot as he panted and hips stuttered before his body gave out and hit the headboard again. Both were wrecked beyond measure._

 _Mallory slumped on top of him, her muscles still twitching around his softening cock. She heard nothing but the raging beat of her heart and the sting of rain outside hitting the glass. It was nearing midnight, maybe even later, and she was exhausted._

" _Mallory," he said after a while, her head on his shoulder. "I know you got a lot of questions you want to know answers to. It's just not what you're thinking, Princess…" Negan muttered and pressed a kiss to her crown. "I promise you that."_

 _Nodding softly, she turned her head and stared at an overturned wedding photo on his nightstand. "I just keep thinking about when you walked into my classroom that day. I already had this picture of you in my mind and nothing you've ever done has really fitted with what people told me you'd be," she admitted softly, not looking at him. "They said 'Negan's an asshole, honey'. Told me to keep my distance."_

 _She felt his chuckle this time, rather than heard it. "Whoever they are, you should have listened to them. I'll ruin your life, and take pleasure doing it."_

" _Maybe I should have listened," Mallory swept her hair back, worrying at her lip. "But they didn't know me; you were right, you know? I'm not the good girl, I don't think I've ever been good enough. The whole piano prodigy thing? Makes everyone think I was good in school, that I had rich parents and a good upbringing but I was just as messed up as the next kid on the block. I wanted a BB gun for my seventh birthday, did you know that?" Mal chuckled hollowly, tapping her fingertips on his chest. "They got me an American Girl doll and I'd never been so angry in all my life."_

" _Sounds like you," he agreed, curling the ends of her hair around his fingers wistfully. "Stubborn as fuck with a sneaky streak in you to match it. Making trouble, causing chaos. You and me? We just fit."_

 _Humming in agreement, she let her hips slide away from him. "I was mean, sometimes. Got into a lot of scraps with other girls, started stealing to get attention. I never stopped playing the piano though. It was the only place anyone was proud of me, when I played. Mom wants me to go do it for real, teach real classes, get paid gigs but I don't know if that's who I am."_

 _He grumbled and ran his fingertips over her head, stroking and rubbing softly. "Ain't my place to say what you should do, Princess, but if I were you? I'd tell her to fuck off and go play keyboards in a rock band. You're young. You should be getting messy, making mistakes, taking pills and drinking til you can't remember the night before. Do shit you're passionate about doing, no matter who says you can't."_

" _Why'd you think I agreed to this whole mess in the first place?" she teased, feeling a sting as he slapped her backside again._

" _Hey," he said, affronted. "This isn't the mistake, Mallory, it's just sex. We're doing something because we're fucking magic together, you know it, you feel it. Neither of us can give it up, not yet. I'm not giving you up just yet."_

 _Something inside her skipped over then, a flash of pain that was as familiar as it was unwanted. She had often wondered what kind of woman could make this man fall in love._

 _Whoever his wife was, whether he indeed loved her still, she had no doubt that he had loved her once. If he didn't care, he wouldn't have turned over the photo to begin with. Mallory didn't want to admit to herself that he was as good to her as she had been to him. They hadn't negotiated this thing well but he was right – they were fucking magic together. She couldn't just drain him from her blood and scrub his touch from her skin._

 _Mallory sat up after a few moments of silence, trying to stop that feeling in her mind from swirling out of control. "Can I use your shower?" She asked quietly._

" _Knock yourself out," Negan muttered sleepily, waving his hand in the general direction of the bathroom. "Towel's hanging up. Don't make a fucking mess cos I won't fucking clean it up."_

 _She took one more look at him, his eyes already closed as she walked naked into his bathroom._

* * *

"I'll come," Mal had relented eventually, tired of trying to fight him. What lessons he was trying to teach her were ones that she wasn't willing to learn anyway. He could show off, brag until his heart was contented and let him think he had scared her, let him think he could get to her. It was easy to play his little game and make him happy. "Where are we going?"

"You are gonna love it, it's where your precious piano came from. Let's get you something decent to wear," he said, turning and going through the pile of clean clothes he had left on the old desk, flinging the garments one by one with his spare hand. "Ah ha, now this is gonna make those baby blues pop," he stressed, holding up a deep, royal blue plaid shirt to Mal's body, thrusting it at her until she took it from him. "With uh…" Negan sorted through her clothes again, producing a pair of black skinny jeans with worn patches at the knees and thighs. "Yeah, those will look fucking badass on you, Princess. We're gonna wow them all today."

Mallory took the jeans as he threw them to her, looking over his choice of outfit laying in her arms. He was dressing her like his own personal Barbie doll, parading her in front of his people? To what purpose would it serve? "Yeah, thanks," she replied sarcastically. "Let me just go scrub the blood from my skin and then we can go…"

"Bathroom's over there," he gestured, swinging Lucille around the place like he was practising for the PGA tour. "I got all day, Mallory, take your fucking time. I just want my baby to have pretty things."

The door slammed behind her, Mallory storming into the washroom before she told him to go screw himself. Scrubbing old soap across her skin didn't feel cleansing; it stung her cuts and scrapes, made her bruises ache like they were all fresh. The more she cleaned, the dirtier she felt; washing herself pretty, just how Negan wanted so he could play ping pong with someone's beaten, pulpy head. She felt the odd sinking familiarity that someone was going to die because of her, because she simply existed for him to show off to. Guilt had long gnawed at her until there was nothing left and she just pitied whoever was going to die today.

When she looked back at the road that had carried her back to Negan, she remembered each death she'd seen had felt less and less like losses. Losing people was a par for the course, another hit she was willing to take to save the rest. It hadn't panned out; one loss begat another, a broken heart and broken body led to more mistakes being made. Desperation drove them until it was her and Peter left alone, not seeing any single living soul for weeks on end until she was driven to the brink.

Mallory rinsed her skin and dried herself off with a worn-out hand towel, patting at the cut on her head before she changed into her new clothes. The clean fabrics glided over her skin, feeling softer than silk even though they were only denim and cotton. The shirt was loose around her body and made her look smaller and skinnier, the jeans fitting snug enough but not quite like they should. She had lost so much weight since he'd seen her naked last, she realised, that he had got her sizes wrong. It wasn't enough to matter but made her pause, looking down at herself as she slid her boots back on sore feet. Despite losing what curves she had, Mallory looked for all intents and purposes the same as she did when she was tutoring.

He was still standing there as she came out with her dirty clothes in her arms, depositing them on the bed. Negan whistled low, running his tongue over his bottom lip. "Who'd have thought you cleaned up so good! Well?" he asked, twirling his finger in circles in mid-air. "Give me a spin, Cinderella. Your fairy godmother wants to see the whole package."

Reluctantly, Mal complied and turned around once for him, his gaze like hands all over. When her eyes caught his again, though, he was frowning deeply, fixated on her head. "What's wrong?"

"Hair," he said, standing up and drawing a pocket knife from one of his belts. "I don't like it like that."

Negan sauntered over and grabbed the half-fallen ponytail she'd made of her thick hair, slicing off the only rubber band she had left. Her hair felt in messy waves as he used his fingers to spread her locks down her back, her hair leaning on the heavy side from the humidity. "Negan that was my last tie…" she protested weakly, fussing with his work.

"I'll get you some real fucking hair ties, Princess, but today I want it like that," he slid the knife back and admired his creation. "I always thought you were a dye job, you know. Never realised how real that fucking red hair was until you stopped waxing your pussy."

Mal cringed away from him as he played with the ends of her hair, putting the curls back after she had fiddled with them. Strands at the front grazed the bottom of her bust, his fingers hovering a path that his eyes followed suit with.

"Let's just get this over with before you go force me to put on make-up and high heels," she retorted, leaning away from him.

He walked a few steps, letting her follow him until he stopped dead and back-tracked abruptly, making her stumble over her own feet. "Fuck me, where are my manners?" Negan said, throwing Lucille up enough so he could hold the handle in front of her face. "You got sweet, gentle hands, Mallory. Why don't you do me a solid and hold on to Lucille for a little while? I know you, you'll treat her right…" she felt a shiver as he looked at her. "Because if you don't, I'll be sure to follow through on my little threat and make you lick your boyfriend's blood from her beautiful barbed wire."

Her pale hand wrapped delicately around the warm handle as she took Lucille's weight from him, struggling with the urge to swing it into his temple and put everyone out of their misery. Mal didn't think she stood much of a chance with that guard, Arat, outside. She'd have a bullet through her skull before she could try for a second blow. In reality, it was a bad idea that she wasn't going to indulge in.

Negan led her through a small crowd downstairs, every person kneeling to them as they walked through with wide strides. Watery, pallid eyes watched her carrying Lucille, Mal hearing the whispers as she passed through the building from top to bottom. She understood it better, now, how he made them kneel to him without saying asking, without ordering. They had seen the brutality of his nature and knew Negan could save their skins or bash their skulls in before they could beg him for mercy. They knew pleading did nothing except rile him further. Penitent, obedient people got a pass because they were white noise.

Mallory bet with herself that she could take Lucille, bash any of those supplicant heads into pulp and Negan would just look at her with that same lust as he had upstairs. Maybe he wanted her to do it, saw that spark inside her from what Peter had told him and wanted to turn the burner up. He'd been so fixated on her, on what had happened to change her that she never realised how much he liked it.

Insanity, she supposed, made bad ideas sound like good ones. Everything went in circles, people repeating mistakes and patterns, catching up to their crazy. Once upon a time, she'd fallen into the warm bed of a man with a hard-on for danger and breaking people, and allowed him to break her until she was dangerous.

Negan, in the driver's seat, started the truck up, the sound rusty. He peered across at Lucille lying coquettishly across Mallory's lap, locking eyes with her and smiling as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

* * *

 _Mallory couldn't think. She washed the touch of his hands from her skin, let his marks rinse away with the soap and heat until she was nothing but herself again. Negan was probably asleep by now, she thought as she washed her long hair. He was probably dead to the world. The storm outside had faded into a sweet drop every now and then, the air outside lifting and fresh once more._

 _Inside the bathroom, she wrapped her wet body in a towel and squeezed the water out of her hair, letting it drip down her arms. There was still a curiosity she couldn't sate, the way he'd spoken was too deliberate. What had happened that made him change his mind about letting her come here?_

 _She wiped her hand across the fogged mirror and searched for a tissue to wipe the remnants of melted mascara from her face. Her eyes were tired and red, sore from the late night and the sex. He didn't just fuck her, he ate her whole until he'd wrung out every part of her and made her mind stop dead._

 _Mallory rubbed her eyes delicately with the tissue, wiping away the last vestiges of her day. The tissue crumpled in her hand, she ducked and found a small trash can beneath his sink, half empty with something at the bottom of the can._

 _Her body froze._

 _There were, inside, empty pill bottles. Ten of them all told, various instructions dated the same day, medications she didn't know the names of or what they were for. She saw one name, though, one that stood out to her, calling and coming to her in a crystallising moment of sick realisation – Lucille. His wife. Empty pill bottles that belonged to Negan's wife, far too many dated too close together. She was sick, gravely ill by the sheer number of pills. She was away. He was… different. It added up to a number she didn't want to see, and she threw them all back into the trash._

 _Mallory couldn't stop thinking. Her own reflection looked back at her, its eyes empty and pale as she hunched over the sink. Her hair dripped into the porcelain._

 _How could she live with herself, knowing she'd screwed the husband of a sick, maybe even dying woman? Mal splashed cold water on her eyes to stop the piercing realisations from hitting her, the things she hadn't picked up on before all coming together. She was in love with a man who was cheating on his sick wife. It was all she could do not to scream._

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. A review or comment is much appreciated (x-posted on AO3)


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight 

Mallory had buried herself in hating Negan for so long, she had forgotten what it was like when he was alone with her. With no audience to pander to, there was a brazen honesty about him that she wasn't used to actually liking. Survivors were sneaky people; they lied and hid before trusting anyone enough to tell truths about how they'd lived for so long and what they'd done to get there. Mallory wasn't pretending she was any different from them; she lied, she hid, she snuck around and had her own interests at heart. Her family – like everyone else's – was dead and long forgotten, pushed back in her memory until it was like her life had been a movie she saw once upon a time. Lies were comfortable. It wasn't until she saw Negan again that her mind had even drifted back to what it felt like without the constant threat of fear and struggle, the memories seeming brighter and better. He brought it all back in shamelessly honest packaging and her heart ached in turn.

Before he had found her again (or maybe it was she who found him), she'd despised those lucky people who still had some semblance of their past lives intact; women who still had husbands, mothers who still had daughters. She didn't have anyone she knew before – like a lot of them, she was alone and trying to get along with people for the sake of sticking together. That had been the case until the universe played her for a fool and brought Negan back into her life like a brick shattering a window. Relationships that were born from extreme circumstances never lasted; somehow an affair didn't seem so much like an extreme anymore.

Negan was a parody of a man in power, of the man she knew him as. Giving her guardianship of his precious Lucille was him bragging to her the authority he really had, knowing she'd never dare swing it in his face. He was King Arthur, giving her the sword he'd pulled from the stone that gave him ownership.

"I'm ready to try again, if you are," he asked cheekily as he swerved the truck just to mow down another Biter. Mallory didn't wince this time, though, not even when the smell of rot wafted through the open window. "We could just pick up where we left off, like nothing ever happened."

It was difficult to restrain her tongue from biting back the way she really wanted. "I don't think it's possible for me to touch you without feeling nauseated, but I'll keep the offer in mind."

Negan sucked the air between his teeth as the sound turned into bitter laughter. "Oh, ho, ho. Nauseated? Now that's a good one… nauseated," he said, stretching out the word and testing it for good measure on his tongue. "I'll add it to the pile of insults you've flung at me lately. I really don't know why I keep you around if you're just gonna hurt my feelings whenever I ask you an easy question."

"I can't figure it out either," she replied without thinking, her eyes darting back from Negan to Lucille. "Our relationship consisted of you pushing me away until I fell off a fucking cliff, so the constant flirting is confusing, I admit."

There was a beat, a moment when she thought he'd fight her on calling it a relationship, like he wasn't willing to acknowledge it as anything more than it had been. "Apocalypse changes everybody, Princess, what can I say. It's changed you too."

"Made me more like you, just enough," Mallory muttered, her fingers twitching around the warm handle of the bat. "I'm starting to not care about the day you're gonna kill me or how long it takes for us to get to that point." She couldn't say what made her admit to it; maybe it was the fact he wasn't looking at her, Negan's attention trained and focussed once again on another empty road, the sun beaming down as they made their way towards his Hilltop place. "We both know it's coming, Negan. We're one big blow out away from you burning my body on a pile with the rest of them."

She saw his jaw tick. His head tilted and finger twitched as he gripped the steering wheel. "I don't like killing women, Mallory, never have," he mumbled in return. "You ever even considered that you survived this long because you _are_ like me now? Cos I sure as fuck have; it's like looking into a mirror sometimes, when you're so pissed off it's hard to tell where you end and I begin. I'm an influence on you."

Her own eyes were set on the woods around them, trees hiding the dangers that she longed to walk through again. "That not a good thing." Mallory wasn't sure who she was trying to convince. "I don't _want_ to be like you, cruel for the sake of cruel, I don't want to get that broken."

Mal didn't quite see his face but his foot pressed down harder on the gas and he rammed another Biter until its flesh was mush under the tires. "Fucking prissy little Princess, ain't you?" he huffed angrily. "Stop pretending you're any less fucking ruthless or cruel than I am. I see in your eyes how you wanna cut my balls off and wear them as earrings. At least I'm not lying to myself about being moral or upstanding or a warrior for the people's republic of Who Gives a Crap. It's bullshit, Mallory; lying to yourself only fucks up your chances at keeping your head above water. You dive into no-win situations playing the martyr and you just end up dead."

"I'm tired of this, having this discussion over and over," she said, snapping back. "I've done bad things, I admit to that but I'm not proud of them like you seem to be."

"Then that is your fucking mistake, Mallory." He said, turning and looking at her suddenly. "Be proud of it, be the worst kind of human being you can be. Nobody's sticking their neck out to save your life, even your boyfriend hasn't done shit to get you away from me. Own up to it before it ends up owning the fuck out of you."

Her knuckles were white as she gripped the bat, sorely tempted to cave his head in. Mallory could imagine the blood dripping from the corner of his thin mouth, eyes telling her wordlessly that he was right all along; she was just as cruel, as cold and merciless as he was. Negan winning was more than she could bear.

"Okay," she said, swallowing her rage and easing her grip. "You want me to own my shit? I have killed people, good people in bad situations. I made shit decisions because I was scared-"

Negan shook his head and leaned back a little, easing up on the gas pedal. "No, no, no. I saw something in you when you told me about killing that asshole who hurt your friend. Something you don't want to admit but you're gonna fucking admit it if you don't want to keep lying about what you are now."

Mallory's heart thumped in her chest as she shook her head a little. "I'm not doing that, Negan. You can't say I'm becoming like the worst parts of you when you weren't there. I had a choice to make in a moment and I made it, right or wrong, I made it. I might be a little bit like you but I'm nowhere near as sadistic, I'm not enslaving people, making them kneel at my feet for a scrap of food."

"You liked killing him, Princess, that's the bottom line," he said, getting that calmly gleeful tinge back to his voice, ignoring her opinions. "You don't have to admit it to me, just to yourself. You liked killing him, seeing the look on his face, feeling the power you had back again," he whistled low in his throat. "That's a fucking turn-on, that's why I'm not gonna kill you; you're more ruthless and cold than I will _ever_ be, because you are un-fucking-predictable. Let that sink into your brain, Xena."

Her head felt fuzzy, her eyes stinging from the tears she refused to let go of. It was all a mind-game, she told herself; it was his way of getting her to break under his thumb, to prove that she was meek and mild just so he could manipulate her in return. Mallory re-lived that night, yes, but what happened afterwards gave her nightmares - Aimee's pale face and her dark, dark hair, the dripping of blood from her wounds as she died with anger in her eyes. Mal rested her forehead on the glass window, watching the Biters roam towards the truck as they always did.

"I liked killing him, for a moment," she said, calm and calculating. Her words were far more measured and deliberate. "I couldn't let him get away with it. Aimee nearly died that night too but I got to him first," she swallowed the dryness in her throat. "I wasn't going to let him touch her for a second. I just grabbed something heavy, hit him over the head. It didn't feel like enough, so I wrapped my hands around his throat and squeezed until his eye popped out. Then I stuck his own knife through it and watched him die." The rumble of the truck was still vibrating her skull until her stitches burned.

Negan shifted to look at her, his eyes blown and dark as they locked with her pearly blues. "Is that how you imagine killing me too? With those small hands squeezing the life out of my throat?"

"No," she said, still calm and measured, saying what he wanted her to say. "I'm not going to kill you, Negan, not until you beg me to make the pain stop."

He smiled softly, a tilt of his head as he lowered the volume of his voice to a mutter. "They have no fucking idea, Mallory. They got no fucking idea how much you scare the shit out of me right now. Can't wait to see you with some real blood on your hands. Maybe it'll be today, huh? Nice and sunny, slight breeze – good day to watch them fight to stay alive, even when they know it's coming. It's gonna be a great, great day."

"No doubt," she muttered and turned her eyes to the window, skin warming from his stare.

There had, in all honesty, been parts of her life that she wished she could do over again, like anybody else. She couldn't completely say she regretted the affair with the man next to her though; instead, Mal's regret lie in falling irrevocably, irreconcilably in love with the version of Negan her mind housed. To look at him now, with his empty love for seeing what broke people to their limits, it was as if she was being taunted with the ghost of a person she would have done anything for. There were glimmers of something inside him, glimmers that shone in her head before the world had snatched them away again; fractions of moments when they were together which she kept locked away in her head, out of his reach and clouded in roses. Mallory's problem was that _she_ could still reach them, grasp her hand around them and try to make them stick to the maniac who wore his skin now. It wouldn't work – it just made her miss when life was easier.

She rubbed her fingers against her temple in small circles, wishing for a half-way point between boredom and her natural pissed-off state. He didn't make it easy to spend any real time in his company, dragging her energy out to its limit.

"I gotta ask you something, though," he said after a moment. Her eyes rolled. "Why d'you never come looking for me, when all this first went down?"

Mal had thought about that question herself in the beginning, why she hadn't tried to find him. "I heard about Lucille, how close she was to the end. Figured you were in a hospital near the start of the outbreak. I never heard of anyone who survived being in the hospital when it all started. That's where it happened, right? Disease spreads quicker in confined spaces, people not knowing what to do to stop the fucking infections. I thought for sure you'd be dead already, I never thought about you after I decided it was pointless to even try."

"So, you did think about me?" he asked, sounding like an eager puppy. "Lucille turned after she died, Mal. Fucking universe even took a peaceful death away from her. I didn't stick around."

"I am sorry, you know," Mallory replied sincerely, avoiding the first question. "I didn't handle the whole thing well to begin with but I guess I couldn't understand why you were cheating on her, what it was like. I understand now, watching it happening and feeling… I really wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."

Negan chuckled softly, an almost sad sound. "I am your worst enemy," he pointed out to her. "It was what it was, and what it was doesn't matter anymore. You and me, Princess, what we got is a contentious relationship. You hate me now, you remember loving me then, all wrapped up in a bundle of 'fuck him and fuck you and fuck this'. I think I like you for your fucked-up mind more than anything."

Gates and fences were on the horizon, made of thick logs, there was a rooftop in the distance too, the sun glinting above it. "Why didn't you come find _me_?" she asked, suddenly realising that the opposite was the same for him. "What happened to you?"

Negan laughed again, his back straightening up as they got closer to the Hilltop. "Went off the deep end and didn't look back. If you're gonna go insane, just go for it. You're wallowing in purgatory right now, thinking that you're serving at the feet of a God who ain't listening anymore. You never heard the expression, have you? It's better to reign with the Devil in Hell than serve at the feet of God in Heaven."

"You want me to take life advice from you?" she laughed again along with him, the absurdity of holding a sincere conversation getting the better of her. "It gives me something to think about at least, being Queen of Hell."

The truck came to slow down as the gates opened for them, the skinny guards keeping an eye out from their turrets. "You'll see it, now, I promise. Just look pretty for me today, Mallory. I'll show you what a King can really do." Negan drove into the colony with a more smug, measured smile on his face, the act back down and her feeling that same sick sense of dread.

She sat in her seat, peering up at the colossal mansion ahead of them, the structure dwarfing the people she saw below it; there was a long dirt path winding up the hill towards the mansion, cabins and vast green fields on either side. It wasn't much of a colony - compared to the Sanctuary, it was meagre at best but the beauty of it was astounding her so much that she missed the man who was suddenly knocking on the door of the truck to shake her from her stupor.

Mallory blinked in slight surprise before she opened the door. He was fairly old and thin, a little gaunter around the cheeks and eyes but on his frame hung a suit with slightly tarnished gold cufflinks and everything as neat as she'd seen on a person. "Sorry," she said as she opened the door, still gripping Lucille.

The man held out a hand to help her down and Mallory took the aid despite herself, jumping from the cab of the truck. His eyes lingered on the weapon in her hand, smile forced, not quite reaching his eyes. "Welcome to the Hilltop," the old man said assuredly, her eyes slipping to Negan standing behind him. "Negan's said that you've requested a tour of the place?"

At the sound of thudding bootsteps, she saw Simon, Arat and a few others she didn't recognise file out the back with weapons firmly on their person, stowed on holsters and on straps over their shoulders. With Lucille in her hand, she looked like part of his army, guarding him. "Uh, sure," she said, a little dumbfounded by the Hilltop house. "I'm Mal-"

"I know who you are, sweetheart," the man replied as Mallory slammed the truck door shut behind her. "Trust me, we all know who you are." He muttered and gave her a frustrated, forced smile in return for her blank expression. "I'm Gregory, leader of the little clan here at the Hilltop colony, we're pleased to make your acquaintance. Follow me and I'll show you around."

Negan grinned almost maniacally and took a large stride forwards with his hands behind his back, leaning in to Gregory's ear, his voice a playful sing-song; "I think you're forgetting something, Mr Senator, you're gonna treat her like the fucking First Lady, remember?"

Mallory's cheeks flared in embarrassment as Gregory immediately kneeled in front of her at Negan's command, his head bowed with reverence. "For God's sake, don't," she uttered low in her throat, stepping back to disassociate herself from the kneeling man. Seeing him on his knees made her remember walking through that crowd earlier in the day, how they'd looked at her with fear. "Show me the house," she ordered instead, to Negan's delight, gripping Lucille. The weight of her felt heavy as she looked at Gregory on his knees in front of her and she could practically taste the blood on the air. Negan had already picked his victim and was making a show out of it being her kill, her cause, her fault.

"Good idea!" Negan beamed and patted Gregory's head like a dog before the man rose from his knees. "Let's go show my Princess what fucking luxury you're living in down here, Gregory. She already abso-fucking-lutely loves the piano you so generously donated to my bedroom. She makes fucking use of it."

"Come with me, Marley," he said and she winced as he got her name wrong, knowing Negan would hate the disrespect and find it amusing in succession.

"Mallory," she corrected as Gregory led them both up towards the house. Sweat beaded on the back of her neck, something wrong prickling at her senses. At first, she'd thought it was Gregory or Arat maybe, burning a deep hole into the back of her head - but it wasn't. She couldn't figure out why she felt like someone was walking over her grave.

"Her name's Mallory," Negan reiterated, chuckling at Gregory's fatal slip. "Fucking Hell, Marley. Fuck me sideways, that's a good one."

Shaking off her feeling of strangeness, Mallory once again focussed on the mansion in front of her, its grandeur reminding her of the colonial homes her grandmother would take her to on vacations up north in the summer, making her trek through decades of history for the ice cream at the end of the day. "It's a beautiful house," she enthused, ignoring how close Negan was next to her – all that was missing was his arm around her shoulder. "How old is it?"

"I'm not sure. At least 1800s, maybe even older. The records were destroyed for fires in the winter, you see, there's not much use for history now, is there?" Gregory straightened his back as they walked past people who immediately dropped to their knees in front of Negan and Mallory. She noticed that only Simon was walking – limping slightly – behind them with his gun over his shoulder, the rest of the Saviours down by the truck still. Negan winked at her as she glanced at him, her eyes sliding back towards the cabins to the side of the house.

"What's it called?" she asked softly, trying to mitigate the charade. "The house?"

"Barrington House," Gregory replied curtly as the door swung open and he led them all inside.

Mallory gaped as they stepped over the threshold, the place looking like the apocalypse never happened at all. "Barrington… wait, I heard stories about this. A FEMA safe zone in Virginia, Barrington House. This is the safe zone?" Survivors who found her group in the beginning would talk about the Virginia safe zone like it was mythical end game and she'd always believed it to be so, never really believing that any government would do much to help.

Negan barked in laughter at her, "Fucking FEMA safe zone, fucking bunch of pussies, ain't that right, Gregory? They fucked off and left you all here to rot and die."

"FEMA did set up the colony here, at the beginning of the outbreak," Gregory explained as he walked them down the hallway, stopping to gesture up at the ornate ceiling. "It was a beautiful house, the land was good, the site was on high ground but they soon realised that there wasn't going to be an end to it so…" he said, looking at Mallory dead in the eye as she looked back down. "They left. We stayed and this is all we have now."

"What Negan has now," she corrected, looking at the man next to her, who shone with pride at her words. Mal fixed him with a stare and felt Simon rustle behind her, the tension thick enough in the air to taste. "This is where the piano came from. Those chairs match the ones in your office…" she pointed with Lucille, Gregory's cheek twitching visibly as she raised the weapon. "Paintings on the walls, too?"

Negan was nonchalant; "What?! I thought the war room needed brightening up. I can't have good décor now?" Negan tutted, using two fingers to push Lucille back down to Mal's side. "Calm down, Princess. We don't want you getting overexcited. This isn't just a field trip sanctioned by the Principal, we came here to find furniture."

"You did?" Gregory asked, the panic evident in his voice.

"We did?" Mallory said at the same time, sceptically.

Negan waltzed past Gregory and into what looked like a parlour, the gaps of missing objects evident by the change of colours; walls around the missing objects were slightly faded, the carpets brighter in squares. Mal had noticed before where her piano – the piano – had stood in the entrance way and the parlour was no different.

Negan started inspecting the dining chairs in the centre of the room, brazenly turning them over in his hands like they were made of nothing but air, though they looked solid and carved by hand. "These real cherry wood? I fucking love cherry wood, man."

"Yes, absolutely," Gregory said in an instant, running his hand over the back of another chair though his eyes lingered on Mallory for a moment. "Cherry wood with mother-of-pearl around the base of the cushion," Gregory added beseechingly, reaching for reasons for Negan to take the stupidly pointless chairs. "The table is solid cherry wood as well, with walnut wood legs, old but built to last."

Negan inspected the chair intricately, running his bare fingers across the grain. "Do you like them Mallory? Too fancy?" Negan asked after a moment, sounding sincere.

"They're fine," she replied, her expression laced with confusion. "Are we shopping or something?"

Gregory fixed her with a glare for just a flash before his charm was back in place with a placating smile. "There's some uh, rooms, upstairs if these aren't to your liking."

"We came here to furnish _your_ new bedroom, Mallory!" he replied, coming over and cupping her face tenderly. Her fingers itched again. "This is not for me, Princess. If you're gonna be staying up there, you're gonna have the finer things in life! Now pick out some fucking furniture to take home." Negan fixed her with a cold stare, licking his bottom lip. "Or am I going to have to take it all from Petey, make him sleep next to the rats in the basement instead?"

"I don't need an eight-seater dining table, just a bed that doesn't creak," she said, trying to find a compromise as he let her face go. Mallory looked up to Gregory, nodding once. "Let's look upstairs, okay?"

* * *

Touting her around as another prize he'd taken as his own property, Mallory stood quietly as Negan sorted out his new presents. Instead of feeling like a prize, though, she felt like a prisoner held to the gun pointed behind her. Simon had remained fairly quiet so far, simply watching and keeping a close eye on Mal but, fuck, he gave her bad vibes, there was no doubt about it. With Negan, she knew what he was thinking but Simon was a wild card she couldn't pin to the wall. Mal could see the lust in his eyes for power and for danger, more than his own boss, but his loyalty and obedience never once waivered despite his obvious ambitions. It didn't matter that he wasn't as imposing as Negan, because nobody was as imposing as Negan. Simon hadn't liked her the first time they'd met, back in that cottage when she'd taken a swipe at him with her bowie knife. Mal often replayed that little victory in her head whenever she felt the least bit scared by his guard dog.

Negan was busy talking to Gregory in a corner, laughter lilting, when Simon stepped up imperceptibly closer behind her and muttered quietly with the tiniest grin on his lips; "How's the head treating you lately? Nice and fuzzy round the edges?"

Her hand twitched around Lucille again, a habit she had begun to form. "Fine, thanks," her face twisted into a sick smirk. "How's the nice thick chunk I took out of your leg? Feed it to a Biter yet?"

"Don't get ideas, kid," Simon said quickly. "He might tolerate his little Princess now but unless you screw his brains out soon, he'll be burying you with that asshole's corpse."

Mallory glanced to her side as Simon brought the barrel of his gun up to point at the base of her spine. "Sure you wanna do this here?" she asked, not scared in the slightest by his dickless threat. "Pull the trigger, see what happens. He'll beat your head to a fucking wet mash if you so much as look at me funny and you know it," Mal grinned sweetly, swinging Lucille in her hand. "Else I'd have been dead a long time ago, that's the thing. You want to impress Negan, you want to be his right-hand man, because everyone needs a sidekick. I want you to lay a finger on me, creep. See how far you can get before Negan breaks it off." Her heart hammered as the gun pressed in further to her back, almost biting, goading. "Go on," she hissed to Simon. "Try. See if you know him as well as you think you do, who he'll choose between."

"One day," Simon promised. "You're going to regret ever taking a swipe at me."

She held her breath and her nerve but Simon backed the gun away from her body, his own looking as tense as she felt. Mal's smile only grew as Negan winked at her again from across the room.

"You like this one, Princess?" Negan called, holding up a landscape painting of a sunny field and trees with a meandering river.

"I love it," she replied sincerely, looking at the gorgeous painting. The want for useless things had long left her but the painting he had chosen was beautiful; Negan still knew her taste, knew what she liked. Gregory wouldn't miss a painting, she reasoned.

"The lady loves it, see!" Gregory enthused, walking over to Mallory and eagerly pulled open a box a velvet box from a side dresser. "Here, you like this too, don't you sweetheart?" Gregory pulled out a silver chain from the box with a locket on the end that he looped around her chest, his fingers skimming her collarbones with a slimy tenderness. "That is a fifty-year-old piece of craftsmanship around your beautiful neck," he said, gripping her shoulders with intent, angling her towards Negan. "Isn't she a true beauty now? Sets off her eyes just nice."

Negan's cheek brow twitched, his gaze burning as he saw the locket settled above her breasts and then Gregory's hands on her shoulders, fingers having lingered a little too long on her skin for even her liking, let alone Negan's. There was a roaring fire going on underneath his iciness, judging by his gaze. "Like it was made for you," he agreed, the stony tone of his voice ever-so-telling. "But uh…." Negan said, picking the locket up from her chest and turning it over in his fingers. "I think we can do a little better than a locket, Gregory. Mal's a fucking lady, you treat her with some motherfucking respect. Diamonds, rubies, fucking sapphires to match her eyes."

Gregory nodded just once and let go of her shoulders, Mal feeling his resentment at her presence. "Of course, I have… uh… some…" he frantically searched the dresser drawers. "Maybe there was something in the other bedroom, I'm not sure."

"No, I want the locket," Mallory said softy, turning to the side and glancing between Negan and Gregory. "Please, it's fine. I never liked diamonds or anything, this is perfect."

Gregory stifled for a moment, looking between them all with slight confusion about who to obey. Mal couldn't give a shit about Gregory really; all she wanted was to make sure Negan saw that he was winning without having to bury someone else. She pleaded internally for Gregory to just let it go, give her the locket and never touch her again if he wanted to keep his hands. "But-"

"Hey, you heard the woman," Negan grinned as he gestured to her, bouncing on the balls of his feet when Gregory relented and handed her an empty velvet box. "She wants what she wants, what the fuck do I know about jewellery."

Mal curled the fingers of her spare hand around the locket and aligned it right above her cleavage, eyes hardening again when Negan wouldn't stop staring at where it sat on her chest. "I think we have enough stuff now, Negan," she said carefully. "Let's get back, to the room, see how it all looks together. You've done enough."

Simon behind her, Gregory to the side, they melted away as Negan leant into her ear. "Lesson's never over, Mallory," he whispered before kissing her cheek. Straightening, he announced. "I should really have had this place as my summer home, what do you think?" Negan questioned as he led them all out and down the stairs again, Simon almost grinning behind him at her trepidation. "Clean out the filth and it can be a real fucking beauty again. Not much work there, is there, Simon?"

"Not much," the man said as humid air hit Mallory again. "But there's zero chance of wiring the place up for a generator – it's way too old, I checked a long time ago."

"Fucking shame, ain't it? All beauty and no fucking substance." Negan chuckled as he stepped outside into the light again, signalling down to the truck that was still being packed with items he had picked for Mallory and himself. "Would you like it if I stuck you here, Princess?"

Mallory went to reply when Gregory cut in; "Of course she would, Negan. All your wives would love to stay here in the summer time, the view from the top of the hill is still _something_."

"God, do you never fucking stop…" Negan groaned dramatically and hung his head, stopping in the middle of the dirt path outside the house. "She's not my wife, are you?" he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "She's turned me down. Me! I'm a goddamn catch."

Mal rubbed the back of her neck in frustration as Negan began another one of his rants, staring upwards at the house. There was a glint of something reflecting in the sunlight, a beam that hit her eyes and movement that accompanied it. Piercing eyes stared back at her from the roof – a man with lank, pale brown hair and the visage of determination. Mallory stared into his soul as she saw the barrel of some kind of rifle in his hands, pointed towards them with fucking intent. No. Not towards them, she realised, towards _Negan_.

Panicking, Mal wasn't thinking as she stepped in front of him, taking a risk on instinct, on guts without glory. Her mind was blank as she let her body shield his, unsure why she was blocking the clean shot. She wanted him dead, but not now. "It's nothing personal, Negan," she lied, keeping his body closer to hers, to make sure he kept himself behind her. "I'm not the marrying type, too much of a wild card."

Negan's eyes focussed on her, a slight tinge of confusion lifting his heavy brow up. "Wild card… too fucking right," he replied and walked back down the hill, Mallory tagging along close behind him, still shielding his body as much as she could. If the man on the roof had a conscience – and he did if he hated Negan – he wouldn't risk hitting a woman he didn't know. If she could just get Negan far enough away, the shot would be lost, a pointless waste of ammunition and he'd be none the wiser as to her involvement.

She didn't bank on a rough hand around her arm, pulling her out of the way of him with a hard yank. Gregory looked calmly at her, though she knew he would burn a hole through her body and out the other side if he could, frustration sweet to taste.

"Maybe you'd like to see the rest of the colony, sweetheart. There's some other women here too, I know how you gals like to chat," he said, keeping his hand around her arm twisted as Negan fixed Gregory with a cold, burning ire.

Her heart thumped as she looked back towards the man on the roof, his gun only just visible. Another few feet and maybe, just maybe, she'll have kept Negan alive. "No, thank you. I have to get back, arrange my new furniture," Mallory hissed and pulled her arm from his grasp.

Gregory's eyes flared as Simon held the gun up to his head as she broke free of him. Her heart hammered in her chest when Negan came up the few steps forwards, his body now shielded by Simon and Gregory in turn, Mallory's eyes darting frantically between the roof and the men. She stepped backwards, feeling the weight of what was about to happen as if she was lifting Lucille above her head.

"Why, oh why, oh why, I wonder," Negan said to Gregory, a nasty sing-song tone in his voice. "Would you be so fucking stupid as to touch my Princess like that? Hmm?" He rubbed his thumb over his bottom lip as mirth touched him. "You know the one thing I don't like is a man who treats a woman like she's a piece of meat. There ain't no point in rebuilding a fucking society if you can't keep your hands to yourself. So, I ask myself, does this mean Gregory's just stupid? Or does it mean something else? Maybe you want to get your own winkled-as-fuck hands on her milky skin, huh?"

Lucille was heavy in her hand. The sniper watched carefully and she hoped his patience was running out fast, waiting as he did to take the shot. Waiting and waiting. Tick tock.

Gregory's face paled as he realised what he'd done in his snap move, touching a woman Negan considered precious. "My apologies, Negan, Miss," he said, throat sticking on her name in his panicked confusion. "If I caused you any offence, it wasn't intended."

"Offend?" Negan asserted, chuckling and slapping a hand on Gregory's shoulder while the other landed on his own hip. "Why would it be offensive? You saying she ain't worth touching?"

"No!" he snapped immediately, eyes darting. "She's beautiful, very beautiful."

He turned Gregory to look at Mallory dead-on. "Even more so with that locket around that beautiful neck now, huh?" Negan replied, clearly having the time of his life. "Silver's a good colour on Mallory, right? Gold would be better on me, what with my gorgeous brown eyes."

"I don't have anything gold here…" Gregory answered nervously, glancing at Negan.

Negan blurted into laughter. "Fuck, you have a short memory, you idiot," he said, pointing towards his wrists.

"You want my cufflinks?"

"Well I certainly don't want your dime store suit, those cufflinks are fucking beautiful as Mallory here," Negan's grin now wild and dark, tingeing with madness at the corners of his mouth. Mal held her breath. "I think I'll take 'em."

The world slowed for a second. Negan lifted his knife from the holster and slid the blade into the side of Gregory's chest with force, the bones of his ribs splintering audibly, the light sparked and faded like stormy nights in Gregory's eyes as he died in front of her face, his deadening life draining out his body. Blood bubbled and gurgled from his mouth before the knife was finally yanked out of his body, coated in a thick film of viscera, Gregory crumpling to the floor at her feet once more. She couldn't stop watching, couldn't tear her eyes away from him as the light fought for dominance over the darkness enveloping him in death.

"Negan…" she whispered, shaking her head, angry in her impotence, refusing to look back to the man at her feet. "He was just a man." She felt pity more over sorrow, guilt over mourning.

Simon lowered his gun to the floor as his boss stood over Gregory, a man made of pain as he bled out into the dirt in an oozing trickle. "Nobody's going to miss this asshole. Nobody's going to shed a tear for him, there won't be anyone crying over him at his grave. There'll just be a vacuum, empty space. That's how it's gonna be now, that's all he is." Negan wiped the blood from his blade on Gregory's cheap suit before he stowed the weapon again. "He made a mistake and paid for it, touching you, the disrespect he has. I can't fucking stand for that." Negan watched her staring at Gregory stoically, knuckles white once more. "You are mine too, Mallory. He broke the rules, and now he's nothing but a stain in the dirt where he came from." Gregory looked up at her as he was, curled in a pile of slowly dying man, once a leader and now nothing but a victim. "Give her to me, Princess. Let's put him out of his misery and give her something to drink. It's a hot day."

Numbness entered her at his words. Conceding, defeated, she handed over Lucille to its rightful owner, watching in gory, horrific detail when blood and brains splattered over her skin again, painting her with her mistakes. She turned back to glance at the house while Negan dealt blow after blow after blow to the mush of Gregory's face. The man on the roof had vanished. She shouldn't have stood in the way, the colony wouldn't have survived but _she_ would have – she'd have her pride, she would have her armour.

Negan smirked as he dealt one blow more to the vacuum that had been Gregory.

* * *

He had loved her once before.

Perhaps it was a fleeting moment, just a fraction of a second in a space of his heart that was long dead, but he did. She knew he had loved her for a second like she had loved him back.

And there was no doubt of her love for him now; a love for the viciousness, for the savage way he took what he wanted unapologetically, for the way he conquered and owned and controlled. Mallory convinced herself he was a different man but she was wrong – he was more than that. She still loved him. She hated herself more for it. He had tried to break her down again and again, nearly succeeding every time before she pulled herself from the brink to bring herself back to righteousness, piety. She cleansed her soul in hating him.

It was a lie. She had carried his child until she hadn't, he was a part of her now and it wouldn't die as long as he was alive. Her hands could have wrapped around his neck, she could have killed him a hundred times and died alongside him when his men came for her. Negan would feel victory in his death at her hands.

Lucille stained her hands bright red, the barbed wire sharper somehow. Her own throat felt his hand squeezing the humanity out of her, piece by piece, little by little. She dripped on her boots. She felt the locket hang heavy on her skin. Sharp edges slicing open soft curves.

"I wasn't sure how you were gonna react, if I'm being completely fucking honest," he said, his voice more human than she'd heard. "I didn't know how it was gonna go."

"Gregory was a dead man the minute he forgot my name, wasn't he?" she asked robotically, rubbing the blood into Lucille's handle. "What could I have done or said to stop it?"

Negan let out a sort puff of laughter, shaking his head. "No, no, no I didn't mean him," he said as he drove them back home. "I was talking about the man on the roof."

Cold ice ran down her back. "You saw him too?"

"I have ways of knowing, Princess, eyes and ears everywhere. I was just so fucking curious about what you'd do if you saw," he said softly, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to a silent rhythm. "And I must say it was fucking illuminating. I thought if you saw him, you'd just let it happen, watch me die at someone else's hands and be happy but nooooope," Negan effused. "Wasn't enough for you was it? You had to be the martyr, had to shield my precious little body from their last bullet. I bet he even carved my fucking name on it."

"You… were gonna take the risk of dying to… what? See what I'd do if I saw him?" she asked, flabbergasted at the balls on him.

Negan rolled his eyes, "He was never gonna shoot me today. It was practice, see if he had the nerve to pull the trigger." He glanced over at her. "Or maybe I just don't care anymore either. I was just so fucking curious to see what you'd do."

"Negan…"

"It wasn't enough for you, was it? Don't lie, now. You might want me dead, you might want me alive, I don't know that yet. I only know one goddamn thing for sure, Mallory, I _know_ that you want fucking control over it, you like having power over my life," he chuckled again, mowing down another Biter. "And I _know_ that if you want me dead, you want it on your terms and not anybody else's…" he chuckled again. "I really should send Rick a thank you card for that stunt. It's been an enlightening day, hasn't it, Mallory? Fucking bright sun shining day."

* * *

A/N: thank you for reading and commenting


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine 

After Gregory, after the lesson and his spite, Negan had done what was promised and thrown away the key to that fucking little cell.

Mallory had always missed the sunshine even more when winters fell into place in Virginia; cold was like death in comparison to the life that came with summer, even before the end of the world. Leaves made slippery paths on roads with forests skirting them on either side like fortresses, the whole earth sprang into the best of itself. It was sweeter now, now that the sun shone when summer came again and the earth breathed; there was fruit on trees and a clear stream if they were lucky, maybe even a rabbit or deer if they were quick too.

Summer was when the world wasn't so hard to live in, to survive in. She had always loved the radiant light in her face, warming her blood and keeping her human enough to persevere. It was even more important to her – to them – now than ever it had been before. She hated winter, she hated the deathliness of quiet, hated the company of only her memories or thoughts of revenge or escape to keep her sane.

Two days cooped up inside her little homey cell made her skin itch like mad. They had gifted her with new clothes and a better bed, fresh food and running water but the way Negan kept her caged drove her insane, and he rode out her anger like a wave crashing to its peak. Mal tried her hardest to get a rise out of many nameless, faceless, gutless people who ran his errands, but nothing worked – they were all tight lipped on orders from above so he could stick a knife in her gut and twist it just the same. They were all so fucking intimidated by the big, bad wolf and his nasty whack-a-mole addiction that they were content to let her scream out her frustrations and kick the wall until the plaster crumbled at her feet. She'd trash the place and burn it to the ground, given half a chance. Arat and Simon taunted her when they guarded her in turns, the odd person she heard and didn't know laughing through the locked door. She broke her new painting in half after the third time they laughed.

On day three, though, the cage clicked open again. Instead of lunch, in strode Negan with that doctor behind him closely, carrying some kind of bag. She saw the hard line of Arat's form beyond the threshold for just a moment before that, too, was snatched away and she was caged with a hungry predator once more.

"Up," he ordered casually, making her skin itch again. "Doc's gotta take out those stitches and get that head in proper fucking working order, miracle that that is."

Rolling her eyes, Mallory robotically complied and sat up on her bed. "Just give me a pair of scissors and I'll do it myself."

"Like I'm trusting you with anything sharp," Negan muttered in reply, sitting down too closely beside her as the doctor got out his kit. "Two days, huh? I gotta say, you're looking better on it," he smirked, running a knuckle over her bare shoulder. "Got the colour back in your cheeks, putting on weight again in all the good places. Almost look like I remember, and ain't that just a kick in the crotch for you, that this is doing you some fucking good."

She hadn't been so dumb as to reject food again, knowing that she needed to build her strength and put on the weight and muscle she had lost while out in the field that last month or so with Peter, barely scraping by.

"Does it make you feel better?" she muttered as the doctor angled her head to get a better look at her healing cut. "To lie to yourself that you're _helping_ me?" Mal feeling the cool slide of scissors as they snipped at the stitches and she saw his eyes glance towards the ruined painting up against the trashed wall. "Women aren't your pets to keep. I'm not your exotic little bird, no matter what you keep giving me to feather my nest."

"Princess, you wound me," he replied in deadpan. "I'm here just trying to look out for your best interests, and you behave like a spoiled little brat." Negan watched her still and unmoving form for a moment, his eyes now trained on the doctor's hands at her tender skin. "Was Gregory not enough?"

Her body flinched as Negan went to touch her again and he backed away just enough to let her breathe. "It was enough for me to see just what you're going to do to people who piss you off. How many ants do you have out there, gathering food for you?" she muttered. "How many do you think it'll take for them all to turn against you and swallow you whole?"

"Actions have consequences, good and bad, even for me. If they come for me, I'll be ready, don't you worry." Negan tucked her hair back from the other side of her face, letting the strands fall between his fingers in an oddly calming way. "Without me and the Saviours, it'd all be fucking anarchy. You never come across those assholes, Mallory? The bands of men who carve their initials into your flesh because they think you're their property? Men who rape women, men who enslave women, slaughter children." He spat the words as if they were bitter in his mouth. "You have no idea how many girls I saved from that fate, maybe it would have even been you too, eventually. I got no doubt you're as good a killer as any I got in my ranks but not even you can take on a gang of Claimers."

Mallory blinked rapidly at the fear lodged in her gut. She had heard stories from various travelling survivors, stories of Wolves, of rapists and cannibals. The lowest forms of human savagery. They scared her more than the Biters, more than Negan.

"Yeah, I heard of them," she looked across at him. Conceding that he was a better option wasn't something she was willing to admit to the man himself. "How many women here have you seen like that?"

"More than I fucking should have had to," he said in a deep growl, glaring at the doctor as he turned her head to get a better look at how her wound was healing. "Any man who touches a woman without her fucking consent should have his balls pecked off and his eyes gouged out. That hasn't changed about me, Princess. They are the lowest form of human scum and I will wipe out any man like that with pleasure. I could kill men all day fucking long."

"It's the women you don't like killing," she echoed his words. A thumb pressed into her cut too hard and she inhaled sharply, pulling her head away from the doctor's firm grip. "Shit…"

His response to her pain was immediate, Negan's eyes flaring in rage before they settled into eerie calm. He rose from the bed next to Mallory, getting between her and the doctor like a human shield. "Say it," Negan threatened brazenly. "Say you're sorry to the lady."

To his credit, the man didn't flinch like she expected but there was no defiance in him either. "I apologise if I hurt you," he parroted, looking past Negan to where she sat on the bed. "Your cut will be fine, just keep it clean for another day or two and there won't be any risk of infection."

Mal nodded softly and pulled her hair back into place over her forehead, words stuck in her throat.

"Good," Negan grinned suddenly, clapping the doctor on the shoulder. "Now get the fuck out of here before I break your arm off."

It wasn't until the room was quiet and silent, the doctor gone, that Negan sighed deeply. In a moment, she saw the weight of it all on him, crushing whatever it was that she had loved about him. His freedom, his devotion, his unrelenting need for control - they were being suffocated by the weight of his own power. "It'll just be easier once you realise… you, all of them out there, all the people in the colonies, they're better off under me. People used to fear the police, fear God and his wrath, that's what kept them in check. They need someone to be scared of, someone to kneel to or it'll be even worse than what you've heard about. I know what worse looks like and I don't want to see that again if I have to. It's better to be scared for a moment than be hurt for the rest of your life."

She didn't know what to say, that odd sincerity in his voice that made her wonder whether this was the real him or another mind game to screw with her. "I know too," she muttered barely beneath her breath as he packed up the doctor's kit.

"Get some rest," he said, his back stiffening as the veil fell again over his form. "Eat your food. It'll be better if you don't starve to death in here, you'll just stink out the place."

And he walked through the door again.

Mallory belonged to Negan, of that she and everyone here was sure. She could see the way he stormed out of her room, crossing over the threshold as it transformed him into another man, a vicious man. She was back to being his property once he was _Negan_ again. Any person who treated his property with anything less than absolute reverence was a dead man walking, and even the Saviours were forbidden from really hurting her or threatening her. In that, she had some power at least.

A strange sense of apathy for other people had begun to set into her in those three days, she realised as the lock turned back into place. Anyone aligning themselves to him knew exactly what he was capable of; it was why she had to see her imprisonment through to the end of the week and get back to her fucking piano. At least there, she had felt human again. It seemed like months ago, when she'd last heard the hauntingly faint melodies that she played over and over again. The only thing her mind heard in the quiet of her room during the day now was the crack of Gregory's skull splintering to mush at her feet.

 _Three fucking days_ incarcerated and she was the one starting to crack at the edges, tiny little fracture lines that made everything worse. The memories played in her head over and over, tripping constantly on Negan's insults and his berating taunts, his sheer love of cruelty, on Peter's lack of action to help, on Arat's smirking silence and Simon's gun on the small of her back.

Negan didn't want her dead, but it was little comfort when he would simply break her instead. Every night that she'd slept in his comfortable cell, she heard him fucking his wife like crazy in the room next door, every time louder, every attempt more blatantly posturing. She had to feel sorry for Amber – Mal thought that was her name, at least; his wives blurred into one mass of fuck toys. She only heard his voice through the walls, his laughter worse somehow. Three goddamn days of mental torture bought its own harsh cold.

And then, on the fourth day, he allowed her to taste sunshine again.

"Get out," Arat had said that mid-morning, her jaw locked in an uncomfortable way. "Before he changes his mind."

Mal almost gaped at her in still silence, convinced that Negan was playing another trick. "Is that a trap?"

"You," she said, pointing through the door way. "Out. Don't get your fucking hopes up; even prisoners get exercise for good behaviour."

Mallory sauntered out of the room with a victorious smirk poking at the edges of her lips, as she was led to the sunshine outside by a seething, pissed-off babysitter. It had tasted sweeter than she could remember anything tasting, that moment. It even blocked out the scent that Gregory's blood had lingered on her skin; all of his death had settled into the tiny cracks of her dry skin for hours after.

The Sanctuary bustled with life around her as she let her lungs fill with sweet summer air, her chest bursting to scream in relief and happy victory. Children laughing and playing with each other and their mothers who watched with a cautious eye. Gardeners tilling the land for whatever it was they were growing, wiping off their brows in the heat and smiling as they talked to one another like it was any normal day. The earth felt alive again, it felt young and free compared to the room she was staying in upstairs. And Negan was right – she'd fucking earned every second of her sweet sunshine.

Her happiness fractured again when Arat walked up to stand next to her, a hand trained on the knife handle at her belt, her face stony and cold as though nothing around her meant anything.

"You don't have to keep babysitting me, you know," Mal muttered as the joy faded and sunshine waned with Arat's shadow. "What am I gonna do, exactly?"

"You're dumb enough to try anything," the woman muttered, her tightly curled hair blowing in the slight breeze. "You're desperate to prove a point and the right amount of stupid to go through with it."

Those weren't Arat's words – she could practically hear Negan's pissed off calm behind them. He was probably right, too, but there was no way she was giving in now. "You believe everything he says, don't you?" she asked softly, wrapping her arms around her chest in defiance. "Of course, you do. Puppets always move in the direction the strings pull them." Mal thought about Simon, his half-cocked threat and Arat's casual violence, her thumb stroking the handle of her knife. "You've been the one watching my door for three fucking days," she laughed in her face, feeling cockier than she probably should in her delirium. "Three fucking days, he puts his right hands at my door, like I'm a fucking terrorist in maximum security."

"You are a fucking terrorist," Arat remained impeccably calm on the outside, a model of a good soldier that just played on Mallory's nerves more. "If you think I'm going to let you out of that room for more than the hour he wants, you're gonna have to start by kissing my fucking boots."

"I'm not kissing anything," Mal replied, just as calm and casual. "We both know that no amount of me pleading will get you to do anything more than what he tells you to," the exhaustion melted into an insanely cheap thrill. "Don't wanna piss off the big boss and give him an excuse to fuck you up too."

To her annoyance, Arat just stood there, unmoving and unflinching. "You have absolutely no idea about us, about this place, do you? Before you get it into your arrogant little head that we're mindless drones, look around. Who do you see?"

"I only see you," Mal said, fingers itching to form a fist at the look on her guard's stoic face. She wanted to beat the crap out of his minion just to prove she couldn't really be imprisoned and force-fed his rhetoric. Nothing could scare her now. "He's manipulated all of you into serving under him. I'm not going to kneel at his feet like you do, like I can't make my own goddamn choices. Fucking puppets."

Snapping into action, Arat pushed Mallory backwards with a hard thrust, away from the mass of people giving them glances. "I don't kneel," Arat said, unsheathing her knife and pressing it into Mallory's sternum. "I make _them_ kneel and they do it willingly."

Her eyes locked with Arat's and the taste of freedom didn't suddenly taste sweet, it tasted of copper. "I'm not kneeling for him, and I'm not breaking," she muttered, not scared of the threat at her throat. "Not ever."

Smiling faintly at the corners of her lips, Arat slid the knife back into place. "They all keep talking about him wanting you as a wife but they're wrong. You'd make a better Saviour, maybe you will one day, when you learn your place."

Disgust pitted in her stomach, settling there and festering more than any insult thrown between her and Negan. He'd chosen his guards well. "I'm not on his string anymore," she said, defiant. "Your boss is an egotistical, psychopathic piece of shit," Mal said as quietly and as calmly as the man himself would. "And I'll see him dead before I walk out of this shit-stain of a Sanctuary."

"Interesting," Arat said, narrowing her eyes in focus. "You'd leave your boyfriend here to rot. That tall, handsome drink of water you came in with? Stone-cold bitch."

"What?" Mallory asked, blinking in angry confusion at her.

"You said 'I'. ' _I will walk out of here'_ , _'I will see Negan dead'_. You would, wouldn't you? You'd forget about your boyfriend in an instant, given half the chance of revenge." Arat chuckled then, the first real emotion she'd seen pass through the woman's face in days. "Guess it makes sense. He ain't done shit to save you so why would you do anything for him? I think you got it bad for men who walk all over you," she licked her bottom lip, perusing Mal's face like an open book. "I'm starting to like this version of you, little girl. The not giving a fuck, the whole independent act, pretending like you're so much better than everybody else here. I just can't wait until Negan gets bored and lets me at you. I'm thinking maybe a month more, probably. That was how long the last infatuation took before he moved on. I'm surprised you're still here now, probably because you haven't fucked him yet, just guessing. I don't think you're the type to take the easy route all those other bitches take."

"I know that he's got you all muzzled when it comes to me," Mal sneered. The tiredness, the isolation and everything built up inside of her until it exploded. "You're not allowed to throw up all your tired tricks, I mean honestly?! Threatening me with a fucking knife?" she barked in laughter. "You know how many times I had one of those in my face, you think you're the only person who's ever done that, even in the last goddamn month? It's boring. You know it's the only thing you've got that he'll let you get away with. You're not allowed to hurt me, to lay a finger on me; the God almighty hasn't permitted any of you sorry fucks to do the only thing you know how to do. All you have left is trying to break my mind but you know that's not going to work either. You can try. I got four more days to go under your thumb before I can go back."

Arat just laughed, chillingly warm and easy. "You actually believed Negan when he told you it was gonna be a week?" she shook her head. "Oh God. You're never getting out of there alive. Not until you go back to being what you used to be; his whore."

Mal whipped her fist back and slammed it into Arat's face with a wonderful, sickeningly audible crack as her nose broke. Her fist collided and for a moment it was sheer joy and relief to be getting some of her anger out and she rode the wave like Negan would, taking intense pleasure in her revenge, in the pain she had caused.

That high faded away in an instant the second that Mallory realised she had done something monumentally stupid. In an isolated room, it was different; no eyes could see what power she had over Negan, however little, and the Saviours' impotence in punishing her. Only this time, she'd gone that step over the line, cold-cocking one of his best soldiers in front of a crowd of people who fell silent as Arat staggered back from the punch, wiping at her bloodied nose and grunting in pain. It wasn't going to be written off and her guard grinned in nauseating happiness at the realisation; all bets were off now.

Arat slammed her own fist back into Mal's face, pain blossoming at Mal's lip as it split and bled until she tasted copper. Mallory launched herself at the woman in turn, slamming into the ground while Arat fought back with vicious abandon, kneeing Mallory in the gut when she tried to reach for the knife at her belt. Her stomach lurched in agony and she felt her breath constrict.

"Little bitch! Fight me!" Arat yelled as she pinned her prisoner's whole body to the ground with grunting effort, Mal struggling against her weight and sheer strength. She fought against Arat, managing to wrap her calf over hers and kick at her ankles. She just grumbled in pain and kept her pinned to the ground harder, straining and struggling against Mallory's spite and hate.

As she screamed in frustration, Arat's hand flickered and suddenly the flat blade of her knife lay with the tip pressing into Mal's cheek. Mal stopped dead for a moment at the look in her guard's eyes, a sheer hatred that spoke more threat than the knife ever could.

Footsteps thundered, shouts of chaos and screams as those women around them gathered up their now scared children. Her head span out of control as Arat trapped her legs and pinned her wrists to the concrete with a single hand, all of Mal's bravado and cockiness dissipating at the familiar clink of buckles and boots.

"Let me fucking go, fucking cunt!" she cried out, uncaring as the knife nicked the skin of her cheek and jaw in a line.

"Make me and I might," Arat spat back, her eyes wild and free, though Mallory saw a hesitancy in there as well, a strain in her arms that was like she was holding back. Mal spotted the scars on Arat's limbs now, a deeply carved in 'C' on her forearm and the marks of bindings across both wrists that made Mallory falter enough for Arat to bring her hand around her milky, vulnerable throat, pressing enough to restrict the air.

She couldn't breathe in anything but gasps, great lung-fulls of air drawn up into her body denied by the precise pressure of a taut hand that wanted nothing more than to see her dead. She heard him before she saw him, the Negan she never wanted to see; a posturing man with a smirk on his face and the tick at his jaw.

"Princess, if you wanted to get my attention, this weren't the fucking best way to go about it," Negan grumbled as he appeared above her head, a little out of breath and mad as all Hell. "Liability, fucking mother-shitting li-a-bil-i-ty." He brought Lucille down slamming into the concrete a few inches from her head, roaring out all his anger.

Mal's vision swam as she gasped for air and scrambled at the hand on her neck, her vision going black at the edges until the pressure was suddenly released from her throat. She coughed the oxygen back into her burning lungs and felt the weight of three days fall on her like a ton of bricks crushing her chest. "Negan, please…" she spluttered, coughing again, feeling true fear.

"What have you done to yourself now, Mallory?" he tsk-ed at her as he calmed down, squatting down by her head. "You get all up your own ass, got cocky? Hmm? Old habits die hard, I guess. You always thought my world revolved around you and your sweet little pussy," he grinned sadistically. "Oh, baby, you know what you done now, don't you? I can see it in your eyes that you know. I could let Arat cut that face up to ribbons but I, for one, think it'd be a waste."

"You do what you gotta do," she said, heart hammering in her chest as blood trickled down her jawline. "Nothing's going to change that now. You wanted me to break and so I broke, in front of all your little ant farm, such a shame."

Negan sat back on his heels, looking to a person she couldn't see, making some kind of silent gesture. Footsteps raced off again as his attention turned back to her. "You still don't fucking get it? Punishment comes from the hand of the righteous man, Mallory. Obviously, I haven't been fucking graphic enough about what the rules are here; number one being that you don't act like a fucking savage."

"She provoked me!" Mal defended, earning herself a knee to the gut again in spiteful retaliation from Arat.

"Do I really look like I give a shit? _But Daddy, she started it!_ " he mimicked, smoothing her messy hair away from her face. "I don't have time to deal with this crap today, honey, I really don't. I should just let Arat do something since she's the one who got her nose literally bent out of shape. Why'd it have to be a fist to the face, Princess? I'd have much preferred if you two got along nice, seeing you both tangled up like this is giving me a very fucking confusing hard-on."

"She doesn't play nice enough," Arat replied, spitting blood next to Mal's head. "Let me cut her scalp off."

Negan chuckled and shook his head softly, "Won't work with this one. No, no, no, I got no fucking choice this time. Just remember, this is your fault, Princess."

Mallory was suddenly flipped onto her side on the concrete with her hands trapped behind her back, the motion jarring enough to make her stomach turn. "Fuck you!" she struggled vainly against Arat's grip.

Her bravado fell, though, as Peter was unceremoniously dropped to kneel at Negan's side, a mere foot away from her own face. They had a gun trained on the back of his head too, with the Negan she hated – this Negan who held Lucille at the ready, the Negan with that self-same smile as when he caved Gregory's head in. People died when he was angry.

Tears burned in her sliced-up cheek as Peter looked across the concrete at her. "Allie? What-" he asked just before Simon kicked him in the stomach again and again until she heard a rib snap and crunch at the blows.

"No!" she cried and struggled even harder, her mind shattering as Lucille rose to Negan's shoulder. "No, God, please no! Don't you fucking dare! It's not his fault."

Negan seemed to take pleasure at keeping Mallory in suspense, helpless, bound, at his mercy. It reminded her too much of before.

"That's not how this works," he replied, swinging Lucille at Peter's head. Peter flinched and Mal screamed at the blow that never came, the bat stopping an inch from his head. Negan chuckled and brought Lucille back onto his shoulder. "I told you, actions have fucking consequences, I never said those consequences would be on you. People fall into line when you hurt something they _love_." He spat the last word.

"Please," she said, the word bitter on her mouth as she said them. "Don't kill him. You know it won't make me fall into your line, it'll just piss me off more. Don't you dare fucking kill him, Negan."

"Kill?" Negan asked, confused. Simon and another man she didn't know pulled out Peter's left arm from his curled-up body. "Who said the word kill?"

Mal screamed and struggled as Negan smashed Lucille down onto Peter's left hand, the bones and flesh sticking to the wire as he did it again and again. Peter screamed in agony, held down to the ground like she was, tears streaming down her face and mixing with the taste of her own blood as she saw his hand eviscerate into a streak of nothing.

Three kisses of Lucille and his hand was a smear on the ground and a puddle of blood, the bones turned to fragments of dust. Mal cried still and thrashed pointlessly against a smirking Arat. Her fractures turned into splinters.

Negan shook the blood and flesh and bone from Lucille, a red stripe appearing across the concrete. He huffed and leaned back to admire his work as Peter still howled in pain. "Fuck me, this one is a tough little nut. Most assholes pass out by now!" he laughed. "Get him to the fucking doctor before he pukes on my boots." She couldn't see as he was hauled away, Negan crouching down in front of her face. "Oh, you got a mean look in your eyes, Princess. Thought I couldn't get to you? Thought you were the only thing safe in the entire fucking compound?" He laughed and brought Lucille up to meet her face. "Look! She just loved that little sip of your boyfriend. I guess you've still got his right hand to go, and both legs too. Maybe kick the shit out of Simon and see if that kills your boyfriend. He'll be a torso by the time I'm done."

"Go fuck yourself," she seethed, inching away from the dripping Lucille. "And fuck your bat, too."

His face fell and eyes went cold from the mirth they held a moment before. "I think you better kiss her and apologise for that. Kiss her, Mallory," he said, shoving Lucille towards her again. "Or she might want another taste of Petey so soon."

Her eyes trained on Negan, she reached out and kissed the bloodied shaft, spitting out an apology. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice full of spite and scorn. "I'm sorry for _everything_ I have ever done."

Negan seemed to look into her, past the anger and the bullshit, her ego and her pain. "I accept your apology and so does Arat. She's going to escort you back to Peter so you can say your sorrys to him and then, my Princess, you are going back to your room. If you're lucky, I might let you out in another week."

* * *

 _She had slept in his bed the night she realised his wife was sick. Every second with his arms wrapped around her felt like a vice that constricted but Mallory was happy to have the pressure of his grip around her body, hating herself for the way it warmed her. Mallory ran her fingers over his hair, wondering whether she would ever stop the sickness in her own stomach at what they had done, at what she had done._

 _Lucille's illness made sense, when she went back over every time he had fucked her senseless. There were sweet moments where he smiled, where he laughed and then there were those times he had painted her body with bruises and bite marks, times where she hadn't been able to say no and the one where she almost had. Whatever was wrong in his head, she was being as used as much as she was being lied to. He had promised her that he couldn't love her and yet she had only come to realise how brazenly honest he'd been – he couldn't let himself love a woman who wasn't his wife. It was a betrayal too far._

 _Having stolen one of the empty pill bottles she found in his garbage, Mallory sat on her bed the next evening with her own crappy, slow laptop open, typing in the name of the medication into a search engine, waiting for the answer she already knew. Morbid curiosity, a need in her to know what kind of man she was fucking, came over her as she looked through its various uses, pictures of sick and dying people and their testimonials. The results didn't surprise her – one word stood out, a word she already knew would be the answer; cancer. It could only be cancer. Of course it was fucking cancer._

 _His precious wife, his beautiful Lucille in the photographs she had seen, was fading from his eyes. Mallory had seen that woman and her sharp cheekbones and soft warmth, painful reminders of what her and the woman's husband had done to each other on every available surface. He was a brute and she a beauty, and there was Mallory stuck in the in-between, keeping one from falling apart and preventing the other from having her husband with her near the end of her too-short life. It was a gut-punch; a pain and guilt that rotted her away from the insides, to know that she had helped this man cheat on his sick, maybe even dying, wife._

 _Her thumb worked over the label back and forth as she contemplated her own breaking, naïve heart. She couldn't love that man, she couldn't even stand to look at him anymore and his face, his hollow eyes just before he buried his groans of pleasure into her neck and wrought out her own. Yet he kissed her like any man should kiss a woman he loved, with his whole being and nothing held back – nothing made more sense than that. They had laughed and kissed and fucked as any two people should. That spark between them wasn't a lie, of that she was sure. He owned her body and now he owned her mind at what he had made her into. Mal was a whore when she'd thought herself a lover._

 _Negan didn't knock anymore. At 8pm that next night, he let himself into her apartment and stood in the doorway, statuesque and imposing, looking like his body was carved from marble. He stared at her on the unmade bed across the room as he closed her door behind him._

" _You skipped work today," he muttered and leant back against the closed door, crossing his arms over his chest. "They're not gonna like it when I tell them you're playing hooky."_

" _What do you think I'm doing?" she asked, standing up. Her bare toes hit her worn carpet as she padded straight past him and into her tiny kitchen, throwing the pill bottle in his face with a casual glance. "Never mind, don't bother, just get out of my fucking house," she said, tired of bullshit. "Go back to Lucille."_

" _She's not home," he said, his eyes trained on the bottle in his hand, having caught it easily. "You stole trash? Fucking Hell, Mallory, my fucking bathroom isn't a playground for your kleptomania."_

 _Blanching, she laughed and shook her head, "God, it's only fucking trash. I know, Negan, I know about Lucille," she said, slamming a cabinet door as she fetched herself a bottle of wine to drown her anger in. "Fucking around on your wife when she has cancer – yeah I fucking Googled it! Low life piece of crap!" she yelled as he opened his mouth._

 _For his sins, he looked hurt for a millisecond before a veneer went back down. "So what? It's not your business, it's not your life. Why are you acting like a fucking child?" he demanded, stalking into her kitchen after her when she refused to give him attention. "Hey, you look at me when I'm talking to you."_

 _Mal's shaking fingers unscrewed the cap from cheap-as-shit wine and she tipped some haphazardly into a scratched glass. "I said to get out, didn't I? So, get out and go back to Lucille. I'm not doing this – or you – anymore. This isn't even a conversation; go home, Negan."_

 _The storm roared in his eyes. Negan tossed aside the fucking pill bottle and clenched his hand into a fist on her kitchen counter, his body taut and tense. "I told you, she's not home."_

" _What are you saying, she's dead? Not even you would be so fucking callous." Mal sneered, shaking her head, "Oh no, you, you're a fucking joke. You're not a man, men don't go fucking around on their dying wives. They care for them, they look after them, they hold their hands. You're nothing and you made me even worse than that. What the Hell excuse do I get?" Mal shook in anger and disgust, downing half a glass. "No, you get the fuck out of my apartment and out of my life and I'll do you the same courtesy."_

 _He wrenched the glass from her hand and smashed it into dust on the kitchen floor, red liquid pooling in the cracks of the linoleum. Mallory shook in fear and excitement when the sound reverberated, a sick remnant of his fucking devotion to her body._

" _You said your piece, do I get a fucking turn now, little miss perfect?" he growled, crowding her into her own cabinets. "You and that smart mouth are talking shit you don't know anything about." Negan pinned her hips to the counter behind her, grabbing at her wrist as she went to slap his face. "Use your words like a big girl, Mallory, I know violence is nice for some revenge but let's not be fucking savages here."_

" _Use my words to say what? How much I hate myself, how sick I feel knowing… knowing what I did to your wife?" her eyes teared up and she shoved him hard from her body so she could breathe. "I can't believe I let you get to me. You turned me into your whore, I feel sick."_

" _Whores get paid, Princess, I never promised you a dime, I never gave you anything but what you wanted. I got the fucking claw marks on my back to match the bites on your ass so don't talk as if I made you do anything you never wanted."_

 _Negan was panting hard, his eyes dark again and she got a sick thrill from it. Her voice dropped to a whisper in reply, "I nearly loved you, that's what you did. You made me nearly break myself in your sick, twisted games. A good person like me can never, ever love a monster like you. Not even in your fantasies."_

 _The thin lips on his face twitched into a smile. "Good person? Good person, right. Interesting bit of bullshit you're saying there, Mallory, preach it louder for God to hear and then maybe you'll believe it too. Since when were you a good person, exactly? When you stole money from your Mother's purse, when you turned your back on your parents, threw your future away because you just had to keep that little kleptomaniac side alive? Face facts, sweet peach, you are not a good person." Negan laughed joyfully. "You can keep pretending that you want the white picket fence, the three kids and an honest job but that's such fucking bullcrap, I can smell it from here."_

" _You don't know me," she panted, leaning away from him as he crowded her again. "I never wanted the life you had, I just wanted to be better and you dragged me back into the gutter."_

" _I didn't drag you," he said, reaching out and tucking her hair back once more. He would always do that, always touch her in the most gentle, intimate of ways to make her think there was more meaning behind the gesture. "You loved every minute of it. You're just as fucked up as me, sorry to say. We are a beautiful disaster together. I don't love you, Mallory, that isn't real. Love doesn't matter when there's this beautiful fucking disaster, masters of chaos."_

 _Her head span as he reached up and held her jaw lightly, her heart hammering as he touched her. "Negan, don't," Mal muttered when he ran a thumb across her lip. "It doesn't matter what I want when this is so wrong. I don't want to be that person anymore." Pale blue eyes watered as her voice broke apart into pieces._

 _Negan looked at her sadly for a moment and she was lost again. "We don't get what we want, not really. There's nothing right or wrong, you just make your own choices and die by them. Don't lie to yourself that I coerced you, that I let you down a bad road again. It's who you are, you're mine – selfish, naïve, spoiled and you are all mine, we both know it now. You can't push me away even if you tried."_

" _I am trying," she gripped his t-shirt in her hands, keeping him away from her and preventing him from pulling back too. "Negan, I… I can't keep pretending I don't hate that you're married."_

" _And I won't pretend I don't want you," he growled and pressed her body into his. "You tell me to walk away and I will, but I won't act like you don't drive me fucking insane in the process."_

 _Mallory closed her eyes for a second and let her heart break into jagged pieces. You had to be more than broken to love a man like Negan in all his fucked-up glory. He was a beautiful disaster, a cruel man capable of more tenderness and empathy than anyone she'd ever met._

" _I hate you," she blinked and bit her lip, the untold anger still festering under the surface. "I should hate you more."_

" _You should," he replied, "But that's okay too. Hate me if it'll make you feel better."_

 _She fractured and he pressed forwards, their lips meeting in a bruising, hard kiss. Mallory would always hate his choices and always love the man he was deep, deep beneath it all. He was a person of passion and instinct, his hands roaming her body in practised terrain that elicited gasps and moans of pleasure even over her clothes._

" _Mallory," he groaned into her neck as he sucked on her tender flesh. "Beautiful, beautiful, Mallory, fuck," he lifted her up enough so she could wrap her legs around his waist until her ankles locked at the small of his back. "Tell me again."_

 _She felt him press, hard and throbbing through his pants and hers but it was so familiar, so real and true. "I hate you," she muttered, catching his lips in another fiery kiss. "Fuck me, make me scream, please… I want it."_

 _Mallory wrapped her arms around his shoulders and he lifted her effortlessly, like she was made of air. Glass crunched beneath his boots as he laid her on her janky kitchen table, warped Formica and metal legs scratching, Negan unwilling to walk any further. Mal didn't want comfort anyway, not when he ripped off her sweat pants and underwear in a single grunting tug, and not when he covered her half-naked body with his._

 _Her cunt throbbed at her thought of being filled and stretched by his cock, pounded into the table until her legs and back burned and she was as punished as he wanted her to be. Negan fumbled with his own zipper and pants until he was suddenly pressing into her wet warmth with an unforgiving slowness, drawing out her frustration and need._

 _Mallory writhed and brought her hips up to meet him as he sunk into her willing body. Pin pricks of tears beaded in her eyes as she thought of his wife, of the pain and the suffering and there Mal was, fucking her husband with a will and a need unlike she had for man who had been her lover._

" _Stop that," Negan growled, still and shaking as he pressed to the hilt inside her body. "Stop fucking thinking, just fucking feel. Thinking never helps." Negan pulled out and slammed viciously back inside her body, watching her face as she gasped and grunted, body rippling, table screeching at the weight it had to bear. "Let me in."_

 _She let her mind go. Her body washed over with pleasure at the burn, him filling her perfectly over and over in draw-out thrusts. Negan fucked her deep and hard, Mallory grunting with him in pleasure when he hooked one of her legs over his arm and doubled down, letting her scream his name in the purest of desires._

 _They came one after another, crying out names and hoping that it was enough to make the guilt burn away._

 _Hours later, Mallory watched him sleep in her bed, as naked as the day he was born with his arms back around her own bare body like before. Her delicate fingertips trailed down his arms, back and forth, staring blankly at his face as he held her. There wasn't the stab of guilt or pain, there was no regret or malice. She was broken, yes, but her pieces fit with his to make a picture neither wanted to really see. It wasn't love, she'd decided, it was so much worse than that._


	10. Chapter 10

Chaos slowed the world down as Arat hauled Mallory up from the floor, barely letting her find her feet before dragging her limp body away. A bitter burn of bile coated her throat at the taste of Peter's blood and flesh on her lips and Mallory spat it out on the ground away from Arat's boots to get rid of the taste, tears beading in her eyes. The adrenaline that had coursed through her veins was waning impossibly fast, the anger dissipating into sick fear and guilt and shame, painted across the concrete like that splattering streak of flesh. Noise faded away as her eyes fixed on the brightness of his blood. It shouldn't have gone down that way – Mallory knew she should have been grateful it hadn't been his head or his leg, but Negan had to keep Peter alive so he could threaten to smash other parts of him so it was meaningless. God, she wouldn't forget that iron-rich taste like liver, the screams crawling at her skin and seared into her mind along with all the horrors she'd seen. Hot tears fell unbound down her cheeks, running over the scratches and bruises and the remnants of what was left of her.

Stomach churning, everything numb and painful at the same time, dragged by a twisted arm to the med bay. Mallory vaguely heard Arat's scornful words but they didn't even register with meaning – it was a blur, the same threats and insults, the same bile thrown up at her, they didn't matter. This time… this time was too much. There were screams of pain echoing around the walls as Arat drew her closer still. She didn't want to do this, to see him, to look at her last hope bleeding out in agony on a gurney. After everything, Peter had been a constant. And now? She might as well have swung that fucking bat herself. Mal killed everything in the end.

"Apologise," Arat spat out as she shoved Mallory into the room. Peter was howling out in pain, thrashing violently as he was held down by two people who didn't look like Saviours.

"No, she's not coming in here!" the doctor yelled, his clothes painted red. Mal's eyes blurred with tears as the doctor glared across at her, his face full of hatred and anger. Mallory thought he was yelling again but she couldn't hear it above Peter's screams, blood forming a waterfall down his body as it spilled from his stump.

"Peter," she choked out, finding the drive to shove herself past one of the men holding him down to cup her friend's face. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" her broken voice pleaded, trying to hold herself at the seams, her heart thudding and shattering into jagged pieces of glass.

"Fucking fuck bullshit!" Peter yelled, veins popping in his neck, wheezing for his life. "Go screw yourself, you and your fucking Negan!" His shout of searing agony ripped her in twain as his left arm and its bloodied stump were pulled straight, elevated above his heart. "This is your fault, you and your fucking hypocritical crap! Get the fuck out!"

A piercing scream rang out and shot down her spine, a sizzle of flesh, a sickeningly familiar smell of cooked meat as the blood vessels were sealing shut. Peter grabbed Mallory's wrist with his only hand, yanking her away from his face as he grunted and screamed, gripping her arm with a viciousness she'd never known, burning deep, deep into her flesh. Lungs blackened, her eyes screwed shut for a second, away from the sight of his arm getting roasted.

Peter slumped unconscious on the bed, limp, pale. He could barely breathe and she felt her world shift again.

Mallory fell forwards, brow knotted as she shook Peter desperately. "No, no, no, Peter please…" she begged, pushing him upright again, smacking his face so he'd wake up, shoving off the cloying hands of whoever was trying to stop her. Her stomach plummeted and the world shifted further, her vision blurring at the edges again. "Wake up, please!" she shrieked, chest tightening.

"Get her out of here! Now!" the doctor snapped, going to work on Peter's dead arm, looking haggard. The smell made bile rise again in her mouth.

"You heard the man, honey," Simon growled gruffly, dragging her away from Peter's unconscious body with force, Arat watching with folded arms and a sick smirk. "Let's get you out of here."

"Get your fucking hands off me!" Mallory growled in response, shoving at Simon like an elastic band had snapped inside her and stung. She felt rough arms wrap around her stomach instead, pulling her away, jerking her whole body backwards.

Simon groaned in frustration as she kicked back, struggling against his vice-like grip, "Okay, Jesus Christ, that's enough now," he ticked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Calm the fuck down and let that man do what he does. Unless you can grow limbs back for people, you're useless." She could feel his smile against her ear as he muttered, "I warned you, kiddo. Welcome to the real world."

Mallory grunted in anger and frustration, letting go of herself just enough so Simon could drag her away from Peter's slumped body. Arat shut the door to the med bay behind her, giving a sarcastic little wave before flipping her off.

"Fucking bitch," Mal spat under her breath as Simon let go of her, her feet faltering backwards. Everything around her span out of control, her heart hammering at the ribcage, her body seeking every seeping bit of pain out and letting it all fuel her. Mallory cried out in anguish and kicked an iron railing repeatedly, imagining the damage she could do with Lucille in her sweaty hands – she could raise her own Hell, she could fight and fight and chip at the walls day by day so the house would come crumbling down.

"Yeah, yeah," Simon muttered in reply, sounding bored as he caught his breath back. "We're all fucking assholes, it's all our fault, not yours." He grabbed at her arm again, leading her back in the direction of her cell like he was walking a dog back to the kennel. "You were the one dumb enough to start a fight-"

"I didn't-"

"Yeah you goddamn well did," he snapped back, striding confidently along the walkway. "Just think about what the Hell you're doing before you do it. Cos that back there?" Simon grunted, yanking Mallory as she turned at the sound of screamed pains. "He should be dead. Or you should, that'd be better. Negan's the best offer you got, and he's taking it easy on you, for whatever shitty reason, and you're biting his hand off for feeding you."

Mal swallowed at the thickness in her throat, letting Simon pull her back into her room as his rhetoric rattled in her brain, seeping through the cracks like it hadn't before. She'd met far worse people than Negan in the apocalypse and eviscerated all of them, but – fuck – if there wasn't something in her that wanted to tear her ex apart piece by piece until there was no more of him than a walking sack of bones.

"I'd rather that than standing in his shadow, scared to step out of line," she whispered, her adrenaline gone. "I'm not a Saviour..."

"No, Princess, you most definitely are not," Negan chuckled suddenly, making her jump out of her skin. He stepped out of her wash room with a shining, spotlessly clean Lucille, using a ratty towel to dry the shaft. "She apologise to Peter?"

"Yep. Broke my goddamn heart, too," Simon replied, his jaw set a little harder as if he'd been rattled by Negan as well. "You need me to guard the door?"

Negan waved his hand dismissively. "Do I look like I need a fucking guard?" he said with a slight roll of his eyes. "Just go round up whoever's left, finish what we were talking about this morning. And make sure Arat's nose isn't all bent out of shape," he laughed at his own joke slowly, holding Lucille up to the light to inspect her crevices. "Since this one probably broke it with that pointy elbow."

Simon chuckled too, letting his eyes roam down over Mallory once. "Arat lost that one. Radio if you need anything, boss."

As his right-hand man stalked out, Mallory just stayed standing in the middle of the room, staring at Negan incredulously as he methodically cleaned Lucille from hilt to head. He looked far too fucking put-together, clothes cleaner than she remembered from before, his hair slicked back again and didn't that just piss her off.

"You are a fucking sight, Princess," Negan said, voice calm and patient. The cloth rubbed over Lucille slowly. "You know, fresh blood's really a bitch to clean. I gotta get it before it sets in the grooves or she won't be the same. Biter blood? Now that's different, that shit's too thick to really set anywhere. I still have to bleach her after that, though, my poor baby. She doesn't like being manhandled too much."

"You had to… clean her?" Mal asked quietly, her temper even and withdrawn. "In my sink?"

"My sink," he replied, tossing her the cloth. "That's better, isn't it? Got Petey's fingertip stuck in the wire so I had to get it out. You know how it is, getting dried flesh off anything."

She dropped the rag on the desk and sucked in a lung full of fresh air, exhausted by his presence. "If you came here, expecting an apology for the fight, you're not getting it."

Negan chuckled and shook his head, setting Lucille down on the desk now that she was back to her full beauty. "Not an apology I'm waiting for, actually. I'm anticipating some kind of rebellion from you, now. Maybe grab a gun from someone and go apeshit everywhere like fucking Columbine? I had you pegged for that after I made you kiss my big, thick bat." He grinned lasciviously but it fell when she didn't so much as move. "Oh, come on, not even a half-hearted slap to my face? I'm being an asshole, I deserve a good smack."

"You'd only enjoy it," she said in defeat, wincing as she moved to the wash room, ignoring his presence. "Can't you just leave me the fuck alone for once?" Mal's voice broke a tiny bit, wrecked as she was of putting up a front of strength when she really didn't feel any. "Why are you even here? To gloat? To rub it in my face?"

His smile faltered slightly at the catch in her voice. "I was a teensy bit worried about that beating you just took," he grunted, following her into the wash room, though he lingered in the door. "You shouldn't have poked at Arat like that. She's too much like you, never gonna back down from a challenge."

Calm settling over her, Mal nonetheless seethed in pain as she pulled off her shirt, not caring about Negan seeing her when he'd become intimate with every inch of her body anyway. Decency didn't exist in the apocalypse and part of her wanted him to face the damage he'd done too, to look at every bruise, every scrape and cut in glorious gory detail.

"You think you know that much about me? About her?" she asked quietly, wanting so desperately to dip herself into a hot bath.

"Arat's a survivor, same as you," he replied, his eyes stuck on the back of her torso. "She's been through Hell backwards doing cartwheels."

"So's everybody," Mallory muttered bitterly. The plug in the sink allowed lukewarm water to fill the bowl, the blood flecks on broken ceramic dissolving into nothing. "D'you mind?" she asked, peering over her bruised, battered shoulder. "I can't let anything get infected, remember?"

"That one nearly fucking is," Negan said through a gritted jaw, nodding to the space between her shoulder blades. "Lucille got you good there, didn't she?"

Mallory sighed as she reached her slender hand back to feel the cut just below her bra clasp; it was indeed hot to the touch and sore in a way that she'd not noticed before, her attention taken from her own body. "Fucksake..." she muttered, wincing when she poked the scrape with the tip of her finger.

"You forget to wash?" he mocked, a tension in his voice that made part of her wince.

Soaking a washcloth in the lukewarm water, Mal wrung the excess out before placing it over the swollen skin. "Not really a priority…" she stated, arching her back and stretching her arm enough to reach the awkward spot. Mallory managed to dab at the surface, sucking through her teeth as it stung her tender skin.

"God, would you just fucking let me do it if you're gonna be a pussy about it." he announced after her second attempt only made a slight dab at the sticky wound, Negan shucking off his leather jacket angrily as he stalked forwards. "Never thought I'd have to teach you how to treat an infected wound, it's like having a fucking kid."

Mal almost froze in place at the familiarity of having his fingers splayed out over her back, telling herself that whatever he was doing meant nothing to either one of them, cold and emotionless as she tried to make it. "Can't be that bad," she said, pulling away from him. "I can do it on my own, Negan."

The man dropped his hands from her back and gave her a smile laden with frustration. "On your own, huh? Worked out real well so far, being on your own up here, letting cuts get infected…" he pulled her limp red hair away from the scrapes on her back, fingertips grazing the tops of her shoulders. "I keep lobbing shit at you and you take it, hit after hit after hit. Brings a fucking tear to my eye, it really does." His voice was gravelled when he leant himself a little closer to her bare back, meeting her eyeline in the rusty window. "Arat was wrong - you're not a Saviour, Princess, you're far more like me than you care to fucking realise."

She pulled away from Negan as if he had burned her too. "I am nothing like you," she whispered, the cracks in her armour widening. "I never killed someone I didn't have to."

Negan just chuckled humourlessly, reaching to the sink in front of her for the washcloth. "Mallory, Mallory, there's always lines you cross and reset after you cross them. I bet that, once upon a time, you said that you'd never kill anybody human. Then it goes to 'I never killed someone I didn't have to'. Next step is 'If I didn't do it, he'd get us all killed'. It's just another step and another and another." He dabbed the washcloth tenderly over her skin, not touching her directly beyond it. "It keeps going up a ladder, like you're playing one long game of trying to remain human."

Her skin shivered when water dripped down the facets of her back, curving with her spine, Mallory ignoring how right he was. "How am I having this conversation with you when you just… you just…"

"Just what?" Negan tested, raising his brow at her before going back to look at her cut. "Just took a baseball bat covered in barbed wire and smashed it repeatedly over your boyfriend's hand until it was jello? That's the long and short of it, sweetheart, and it's the nicest thing I've done in a long-ass time." He laughed at the look on her face and it made her stomach churn. "Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every second of that but it doesn't help that they all think I'm soft on you, Princess…"

"How is that soft?" Mallory asked, wincing as her back throbbed. Her fingers gripped the edge of the sink until they turned paler.

His breath was warm on her arm as he leant over to grab a tiny sliver of soap. "Cos it would have been his head if you were anybody else in the world. Hell, Mallory, have you even heard about the shit I've done?" he said it proudly, averting her hot, simmering glare. "I kill people if their friends even think about stepping out of place. And you go and body slam my tough motherfucker Arat to the ground and break her face, and I only took your boyfriend's fucking hand in recompense?" Negan whistled low, laying the soapy cloth over her cut to soak the crusted flesh. "I got to save some face now, you know. Show them all how it is since you're making me all soft and melty."

"Why?" she said, her voice ragged through guilt and the pain at her back. "Why'd you have to do it like this? This is chaos, Negan, it's not society, and it really isn't fucking Sanctuary."

Her heart jumped into her throat at the fiery look of his eyes, how they raged at her, mirrored in rust. "Chaos? I told you, lines, boundaries… they move. This isn't chaos anymore, this just a new kind of order and it's the only one they all know. People are animals, Mallory, you've seen it. People like you put down the dangerous animals after they'd already done damage, and I'm taking them down before, that's the only motherfucking difference here. I'm taking the hits they're too scared to make. Or…" he switched tone, lathing the cloth over her cut. "Or maybe I just got a thirst for it now. It's kind of fun, after a while. Watching the tough nuts take the hits, try to talk with half a brain on the ground. They never beg for mercy anymore, I kind of miss that."

Her eyes screwed shut as her back started to sting in pain at the soap being pushed into her cut, drawing out the crud and the filth inside. She wanted to blank out Peter's eyes, his screams and the taste of his blood and took the pain Negan gave her. "You're a monster," she gasped as he pressed harder, letting her feel it seep out.

"I have to be, Princess, so the rest of them fucking aren't. Before he met me, that sniper friend of yours took a bomb to my people. Snuck up on them, killed them, and didn't even blink twice about it. I had a lapse in my judgement of that assfuck and it cost people their lives. I took a few of his friends, turned them into sushi and then he was cowering at my fucking feet. Nobody, nobody else fucking died, Mallory. He took dozens of lives that were my fucking responsibility and I made it so he'd never take any more. I know it's just a matter of time before he finds his balls again and takes that shot but we'll be ready. I just hope he doesn't kill you first; it wouldn't end well for him if he did." Finally relenting, Negan released the pressure from her back.

Mal's shoulders sagged just a little, her fingers flexing on the sink. "It doesn't have to be like this. I don't want anyone to live in fear."

Negan scoffed and rinsed out the cloth again, shaking his head. "Fuck me, when were you this naïve and stupid? Fear keeps your senses sharp."

"No, no, it fucking doesn't, it makes you do stupid things, take dumb choices," she protested quietly, relaxing as his palm settled on her sore shoulder blade, the ache somehow alleviated. "I thought I could keep everybody safe and look what happened, look where I wound up."

Her eyes watered as he stepped imperceptibly closer to her nearly bare back, thumb swiping across untainted skin. "Back with me. That's where your fucking choices got you, Princess."

Looking back on it, the decisions she'd fought for and the ones she'd demanded, Mallory couldn't say in all certainty that ego wasn't a factor. She thought she knew so much more about the world, and they had all looked up to her the way that Negan's Saviours looked to him now – for guidance and leadership, for the path with the biggest reward. Her ego had clouded her choices in a way that his hadn't – his ego had brought safety when hers had brought death.

"You don't know what happened, though, like I don't know what happened to turn you into this," she looked away, back down into the sink with dirty water stagnating as she stood there. "The shitty thing in all this is that you're fucking right," she said, wiping a tear angrily from her cheek. "If I was like you, even a little bit, they'd be fucking alive right now, they'd be safe downstairs and maybe I'd be with them."

Both were silent for a moment, though she could feel the smile and pride in his body behind her, through the way he kept his fingertips still. Her body broke into goose bumps when he shifted the hand to her clothed hip for a fraction of a moment before he rinsed the cloth again.

"I lied to you," he muttered quietly, avoiding her eyes, a faint trace of that talked-about fear in his gruff voice. "Before, I lied when I said I didn't look for you. I did look for you, in the beginning. I went to your parents' house and your apartment but... well, you know."

Mallory didn't know what to say. How could she believe him when he would say anything for her compliance? "You did?"

"Yup," he said, popping the word on his lips. "Place was ransacked, looked like. I saw your Mom's body in the living room but nobody else was there. Went to your apartment and it was covered in dust, scratches around the door handle, like someone tried to break in."

Her voice caught in her throat. "You saw her?"

"Yeah, I saw her," Negan replied quietly. "I'm sorry you had to do that."

Mal jerked away from him suddenly, turning around and wrapping an arm around her stomach. "Why did you come looking for me?" she said angrily, deflecting the pain she felt still about her mother. "Why did you even try?!"

Negan was calmer, stepping back to give her space enough to move again. "I had nobody else, you know that. Lucille was already fucking dead, and she was it. When people tell you their whole family was wiped out by this bullshit apocalypse, it doesn't usually mean just one fucking person, it's kids, it's friends and parents and neighbours. I had Lucille and I had you and that was it. Soon as I saw those scratches, I knew you were long gone, I just couldn't stick around to see if that meant dead or alive."

"So, you fucking left?" she argued incredulously. "Am I meant to be touched that you took a whistle-stop tour of my pain on your way to establishing modern slavery?"

He blinked before he burst into laughter, eyes crinkling at the sides. "Fucking drama queen, knew the guilt angle wouldn't last long with you, Mallory." He picked up her ruined shirt from the floor and looked at it with weary disgust before tossing it to her. "What the fuck happened to your stomach?" he asked as she lifted her arm to catch the shirt, eyes snapping to just above her bellybutton.

Truthfully, Mal had forgotten about her scars, long giving up pretence of hiding them from anyone. "I got shot with a shotgun. There's also a scar on my thigh from where a guy stabbed me to get the last can of chilli in a mini-mart, maybe you wanna see that too? Oh, and one of my now-dead friends had to pull broken glass from my foot when a court building blew up with half of my group inside. I got scars, Negan, you got scars?"

"Not like that," he replied, his eyes fixated on her dimpled skin as he glazed over. "You've got more than most I see come through here. Sorry for staring at you like this, but all this time I had some idea of you in my head, I was remembering the person you were before, every time I touched you. Different skin now, though, isn't it? All those scars and dimples and rough skin."

"Is it that ugly?" she asked, pulling her shirt back on with a rough tug. "Thought I did a pretty good job of sewing all those holes up by myself." Mal realised he was still staring at her torso and thought she might as well have been naked. "I got those at the start, Negan. When everybody was panicking, and screaming, before they realised that we're better together than apart, I took a hit in the gut and went down hard. Not my last lucky escape."

He was quiet again, a pulsing of the vein in his neck standing out. "I should have looked harder for you. Maybe you wouldn't have got shot or stabbed in the first fucking place."

"I'd never have gone with you anyway," Mal replied, looking away from him as she drained the sink, realising she only had a day or two's soap left that she wasn't wasting on a scrape.

"I'm too soft on you," he said with a hard set in his jaw for a moment before he broke into an empty smile. "You really can fucking take a pounding and come out on top. Arat should have known better than to try it on with a badass motherfucker like you, she shouldn't have even touched you."

A spark tingled in her brain for a moment. A realisation clattering around her head. Arat had been snarking remarks at her, trying to get a rise from Mallory and she'd only parried the verbal blows back before she snapped. "Did you tell her not to hurt me?"

He growled then, caught out. "Girl's got an ego the same as yours, wouldn't take no for a fucking answer." Negan leant back against the doorjamb, just looking Mallory up and down. "I gotta say, Princess, you and that attitude of yours, you're driving me fucking insane. Amber can't walk straight in the mornings now," he proclaimed pridefully.

"Get that idea out of your head," she said, feeling her nerves settle back into a hard layer around her. "We were always a bad idea from the start, no use dwelling on the past now, Negan."

He scoffed and grabbed his jacket where he'd dropped it on the floor, walking back out of the room. "Who are you trying to kid, Mallory?" he asked, grinning ear-to-ear. "I seem to remember a lot of begging and pining, and you telling me I was the best sex you ever had in your life."

Following him tentatively, she kept her distance. "That wasn't a lie. Doesn't mean it was a good idea, I was young and so fucking dumb about you. I should have seen that dead heart from the beginning. It was my mistake, and I'm the one paying for it."

"Oh, you're just bitter cos he can't make you come like I can." Negan slipped back into lewdness, shrugging on his jacket again.

Rolling her eyes, Mallory rubbed her neck in exhaustion, spent and tired of being near him as if he drained her life away. "For the last time, Peter's not my fucking boyfriend. I've not been in a goddamn relationship since you turned your fucking back on me. I don't get burned more than once, Negan, and you got me good."

She kept her distance as he picked Lucille up from the desk, holding her down by his leg. Mallory watched that pride swell in his chest as his costume slipped back on, tongue rolling lazily over his bottom lip and eyes dark, almost playful. Her body tingled at the way he looked over her now, like his name was stamped all over her.

"Well ain't that a nice little piece of information to warm me up at night…" his eyes flickered over her from top to bottom. "Thought everybody was fucking now. Seems threat of death makes everybody want to celebrate being alive."

"Call it experience," she said, waiting for him to leave her in peace so she could collapse in a heap and try not to think about Peter. "Peter's a good man, underneath it all, he's just scared of what you'll do. Now he doesn't trust me, now he hates me. You win, I guess. I'm alone again, because of you." Peter wouldn't forget what she'd done, Mallory was sure. Nothing was more frightening than desperation and a last resort.

"Love's not worth your time, Princess," Negan announced, like he had shrugged off her pain like a fly. "It makes you weak, and it makes you stupid. I saw it everywhere, people in groups, loving each other so much that it made them easy. You're the tough nut I can't crack and now I know why. You don't love that dipshit, you can't love full stop. Smart girl, keep it up."

She was about to bring up his wives when she bit her tongue, holding back her opinion. She knew what he would say anyway; that he didn't love any of them, that they were warm, willing bodies he could slide into. Status afforded him that privilege, a beautiful woman or five to call upon. He wouldn't have allowed himself to love any of them – or her – because it was weakness.

"I'm not just a pretty face," she muttered sarcastically, keeping her distance from him.

"You were always beautiful, Mallory," Negan said in reply, walking up to her with a confident stride and Lucille stuck to his hand. "You make me crazy, but I fucking love that, I always did. Now, if anyone touches you again, I'll take their hand too." He was barely an inch from her now, pulling her crossed arms apart with a soft tug. "I'll show you the rest of this place myself tomorrow, see how many hands I can turn to mush. Can't trust you not to get in another fight, can I?" he asked rhetorically, looking at her bruised knuckles.

Her breath caught in her throat as he placed an almost tender kiss to the back of her hand. "If Peter dies," she whispered, trying to cover her shivers. "I'll come for you and you'll have to kill me yourself."

"Don't doubt it," Negan muttered, winking softly before he strode out of the room.

It wasn't until the footsteps faded away that Mallory sank to the floor, her body giving up in exhausted angst. Maybe Peter was right; the only way to beat Negan was to let him win, to let him be weak and take her back so she could gain some control. She stared at the cracks in the plaster of the wall next to her, a hand on her flat, scarred stomach.

* * *

" _When was the last time you ever just stopped thinking?" he had asked her one evening, kneeling on his own bed with her foot in his hands, rubbing deep circles into her heel to draw out the tiny aches._

 _Negan hadn't given up on getting her to forgive him again, despite the walls that she'd built around herself in protection. Ever since their fight, she'd tried her hardest to stop that quickening of her heart when he kissed her or smiled at her. The man made her laugh, and made her into a lot of other things too. Mallory's walls protected her from the inevitable time when everything would change and she'd be alone again, wondering what the Hell had gone wrong. Her relationships never lasted, and this wouldn't either, but it didn't mean she'd never feel the aftershocks of the earthquake._

" _Is it even possible to stop thinking?" she replied with a victorious little smirk, pushing herself up on her elbows to get a better look at him. "You try it, see how far you get and call me if you figure it out because I have no fucking clue."_

 _Moving to get up, he instead yanked on her ankle and watched her fall backwards onto the bed again, bouncing on the mattress like a child. "Where'd you think you're going?"_

" _It's like 2 o'clock in the goddamn morning," she said with a whine, turning and looking at an alarm clock blinking on the side of the bed she'd tried to ignore. "I'm gonna take a shower and get home, I have a private garden party to work tomorrow at 4."_

 _Negan pretended to think about it for a second before shaking his head. "Nope. Not gonna happen tonight. I haven't seen you for a fucking week since you took that trip, I'm not letting you off that easy," he laughed, kissing her instep and making her giggle. "It's been for-fucking-ever. I had to put up with working without a distraction in a tight skirt for a whole week, you owe me."_

 _Mallory scoffed but didn't try to get up again when he kissed her ankle. "It was a weekend in Hershey, Pennsylvania with my Mom, not a month in fucking Calcutta." He pressed another sweet, pointed kiss to the skin of her calf, looking at her with those dangerous eyes. "All we did was eat chocolate for four days and talked in the car."_

" _And to make it up to me," he smirked, kissing up her leg, leaping his kisses down the warm skin until he reached her knee. "You aren't going anywhere." Negan leaned over her and reached down the side of the bed, Mal confused as to why until his hand wrapped around a cord and tugged. The alarm clock shut off in an instant, and he grinned widely. "Problem solved."_

" _Idiot," Mal laughed, before kissing him deeply, cradling his head in her hand. "I have to leave eventually, can't keep me naked in your bed all week just because you missed me."_

 _There was a flash of something across his face before a barrier was back down, and a more measured smile in its place. "I did miss you, Mallory," he said, running his lips down her collar bone and over her chest. "Don't fucking leave without telling me again," the man growled into her sternum, his hands around her waist as he purposefully avoided her breasts._

 _Fingers spread in his hair and played, her eyes darting upwards so she couldn't see his face, putting up another wall instead. "I'm sorry. It was kinda sprung on me at the last moment, you know, mother-daughter road trip…" she trailed off, knowing her excuses were simply that. "Do I have to make it up to you?"_

" _Yes, you fucking have to make it up to me," he had murmured, the pressure of his hands on her waist increasing. "I spent a weekend on my own, rattling around, going out of my fucking mind."_

 _Mallory tried to keep herself from smiling but it tugged at the corner of her lips nonetheless, the image of him in his own home just waiting on her to get back so he could get his hands on her. Why he was alone, she didn't want to know. "Okay. What would recompense you for a weekend with no sex?"_

 _Negan looked back up at her then, the weariness and longing back and unguarded. "A bath," he stated simply. "Let's take a fucking bath."_

 _Whatever Mallory had expected him to say, it hadn't been that. She laughed aloud, thinking he must have been joking. "What?" she chuckled, levering herself up a little. "Big, bad old Negan actually wants to soak in bubbles and let his cares float away?"_

 _He ignored her reaction and tugged her up from the bed as he stood, unashamed. "There's a lot you don't know about me, Princess. Nothing better than a bath full of bubbles and a hot, naked lady sitting in my lap. You really oughta look at your stereotyping of manliness. Someone's been reading too much fucking Hemingway."_

 _That was how Mallory found herself a half hour later; encased in soft, creamy bubbles that were tinged with a scent that lingered in the air, a curious mix of floral and fruit, stronger than normal bubble bath usually was. Negan had taken down a pretty bottle specifically, tipping half of it under the running water until the foam was thick and the smell just enough to make her feel like she was floating on a river of lillies instead of suffocating on lavender pot pourri. The water was just the perfect side of hot, like she liked though he complained he was being boiled alive. Mal just laughed and played with the mesh of bubbles floating around them._

" _I can't remember the last time I had a bath," she murmured, having settled back into his chest, letting the water in the huge tub pool around her body and wash away her aches. "Probably not since I moved out of home at least. Probably… ten years or something."_

 _There was a soft chuckle behind her, fingertips lifting from the water and running up and down her arm, washing the soapiness away. "I'm usually the 10-minute shower guy," he admitted, shifting so she had more room. "There's just something about having a wet woman in your arms, though, smelling like she's fucking Aphrodite on the sea foam," he murmured against her temple, looking down as if he was mapping the contours of her body. "View's fucking awesome too. I could motorboat the fuck out of you right now."_

 _Mal ignored him, biting back a laugh. Negan's voice faded away into nothing as she lay in the water, able to stretch out as much as she wanted, her legs not reaching the faucet end of the tub. How he afforded this bathtub – even the whole fucking house – was beyond her comprehension. The furniture was quality stuff, the bed soft and solid, bathroom beyond means… the whole house was a domestic suburban dream, a dream he didn't… fit. Negan, as far as she knew, was a teacher and this place wasn't bought on that salary; no, the only thing that seemed off about his own house was him._

 _A steady heart beating against her back was comforting in a way she hadn't expected. His arms didn't feel cloying and his touches on her silky, wet skin were enough to make her feel adored. Mallory sighed softly. "I concede. This was the best idea you've ever had, including that time we had sex in the stationery closet at school."_

 _Negan trailed his fingertip around the bottom curve of her breast, back and forth, "I have plenty of fucking good ideas, Mallory," he replied, voice dreamily soft, like it was in her memories. "I could spend hours doing this, lying here with you."_

" _We don't have hours," Mal muttered, closing her eyes for a moment. His fingers trailed over her body from collar to stomach, simply wandering lazy paths that she missed and he must have missed too. "We have until she comes back tomorrow morning."_

 _He stiffened slightly behind her, gruff. "You know how to fucking kill a mood."_

 _Mal winced at that but pressed on regardless. "It's true," she said, her head still swirling with guilt over Lucille. "This is loaned-out time, I have to get out of here and go home eventually."_

" _She knows how it works," Negan grunted out, cupping her breast with his palm and squeezing softly. "Lucille… you don't have to worry about her hating you or some bullshit like that. She knows what I'm like and it's fine between us. She's my wife, Mallory, she's not stupid. I told her about you a long time ago."_

 _He kissed her shoulder tenderly and her eyes slid open, feeling that pit in her stomach widen enough so she felt sick again. "What did you say?"_

 _He groaned in frustration, slipping his hand down into the water, pulling her thighs apart. "I told her that I saw a woman," he muttered, making her inhale sharply when she felt his fingers softly probe between her thighs. "This bright, brilliant, spoiled little Princess who was getting under my skin. You had on this plaid, pleated skirt and those fucking legs of yours went on for days…"_

 _Frowning in confusion, she turned her head to look at him. "I wasn't wearing that when I met you."_

 _His fingers arrested their movements and he smirked. "Might be because I saw you before you met me. When you came to the school for your interview with Principal Douchebag, I saw you waiting outside, jitterbugging around like you were nervous, wearing that schoolgirl skirt. Fuck me, it was like boner at first sight, baby."_

" _Don't call me ba-" her words broke into a whine as he rubbed at her clit softly with a single fingertip._

" _I'm telling the story, don't fucking interrupt me," Negan growled against her ear. "Like I said, you were sitting outside that dickhead's office, tapping that foot up and down so your whole fucking body was jiggling." He let out another growl and a shift of her hips and she felt him hard against the small of her back. "Looking like butter wouldn't melt, and fuck, those pouty lips painted up that nice sweet pink colour. You knew who was interviewing you, didn't you? Thought you'd grease the wheel a little with that old perverts?"_

 _Mal grabbed at Negan's wrist as he teased her beneath the water, her heart racing. "I fucking did not."_

" _Yes, you fucking did!" he mocked, "I even saw you perk up your tits so he'd hire you. Princess, it was love at first fucking sight. Innocent and sweet on the outside, playing the game, dressing to fucking impress. You were mine before you even said a fucking word, I was always gonna try it on with you."_

 _He pinched her clit and she yelped, making water slosh around as she jumped. "Ass!" Mal chuckled despite herself, catching her breath again as he relented. "So, what, you told Lucille about how you wanted to fuck another girl?"_

" _Yeah," he replied nonchalantly, using his other hand to pinch at her nipple. "She knew my type anyway. I like 'em fiery like you, willing to give as good as they get."_

 _Mallory didn't know which way to turn, whether to be flattered or outraged and her body betrayed her again when he sank two thick, demanding fingers into her tight pussy suddenly, stretching her enough to hurt after their night of freedom in his marital bed. "Fucking fuck…"_

" _Like that," Negan said raggedly, shifting her body closer to his. "That was all I could think about for fucking weeks until your classes started, Mallory. I thought about what the sound of your voice was like, if that red hair was real, whether you'd even be fucking receptive to the idea. Lucille knew I was different after you came into my life, and that she couldn't stop me from doing it again. I'm a fucking asshole, Mallory, it's who she married. I love her in ways that that you can't understand."_

 _Her head fell back against his chest as he played with her body, his mouth on its own run while her throat was clogged between pain and pleasure, feeling her heart break as her body told her to go another way. "Negan…" she panted, lifting a leg from the water to rest on the ledge of the bath. "I can't keep it up…"_

" _You can," he growled and pumped his fingers slower, dragging his rough fingertips over every crevice inside her cunt. "You fucking can and you fucking will. You feel bad, I get that, Princess. Guilt's not gonna change how you feel, though, is it? Just take pleasure in life where you can cos it's all gonna end someday."_

 _Both of them knew, Mallory thought, that the day would come where one would walk away from the other and that would be that. He took his frustrations about Lucille and her cancer out on Mallory's body, crumpled whatever he felt and funnelled it into all he wanted from her instead. She didn't know if any of it was true but she desperately wanted him, wanted to believe him, wanted to be the one he confided in, even without him saying a word about it._

" _I don't want it to," she panted and cried out as he pressed a thumb to her clit. "Can't end."_

" _Shh," he said, latching his lips onto her neck. "You're still mine, Mallory. Nothing changes that. Twenty, thirty years from now when I'm a fucking geriatric old asshole in some nursing home with a tube in my dick, I'm still gonna be thinking about you. Can't forget how you taste, Princess, you're seared into my goddamn mind. You're too good for me, I know that. I won't stop."_

 _Her body seized as she came around his fingers, clamping down with a brutal force, a cry ripped from the base of her throat. He watched her carefully, how her body sought out his and begged for more without words, tugging him back to where he belonged; with her._

" _Negan," Mallory panted as he slowly slid his fingers out after a few moments, her heart hammering. "I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this."_

 _His sigh felt like an assent, Negan giving up part of what he held back. "That's… that's up to you." He grunted out, sounding like he was trying desperately to hold his head above water. "Your choice. I won't ever walk away from you again, Princess, not if you don't want me to…" when she didn't say anything, he kissed her shoulder in apology. "I can't say I'll love you like I love my wife but I'll be here until you decide you don't want me anymore."_

 _The smell of the bath water faded away slightly as the warmth seeped into her bones. Mallory shifted her body to lie flat against his, his arms wrapping around her stomach gently, encasing her. "Okay," she whispered, knowing somehow that this would be the worst decision she'd ever made, to not walk away right now and leave with a remnant of her dignity. "Okay."_


	11. Chapter 11

Night seven. Nightmare number twelve.

Blood – dripping, thick, angry blood – stained her shirt as something grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, a faceless head of grey skin that split into a grotesque smile, an arm reduced to a bloodied stump and mass of quivering flesh below it, the stench burning her nostrils, fetidly leeching all the life from her lungs. Hands scrabbled and a voice screamed, torn from her throat when it started to rip into her.

Everything was infected with darkness, clammy, rotten hands seized at her arms and shredded the muscle from her bone, ripping her to pieces of pustular sinew and meat before her own eyes. She shrieked, shoving at the thing with her half-eaten body. It had desperate claws, bones scraping against hers. Laughter - sinister, raucous, childish laughter and dark eyes flashed until she suddenly ripped a knife from its head, its face revealed in gory detail.

They were consumed by bright, pale light. His eyes oozed as she pulled the blade out with a heft, the wet sucking sound reverberating in her mind. Hard lips pressed to her own and swallowed her whole.

Mallory's eyes snapped open, her skin prickling with sweat and heat as her lungs filled with blessedly clean air. All of it hit her at once – the lingering aches and pains drowning her as she woke up from her nightmare, heart thundering in her chest and rattling her limbs. Before he had thrown her back into her cage again, Mal hadn't dreamt anything – good or bad – in so long that it had taken her more than a few breaths each time to remember where she was and who she was, even as her hand still shook, even as she wiped beads of sweat from her forehead.

Sitting up and shoving the damp bedsheets from her body, all of her hoped beyond hope that she hadn't been loud enough for anyone to hear again – it would be worse to admit that she still had those kinds of nightmares, the ones that she considered weakness. Biters were second nature, they were common as rats, another plague on the earth that kept people sharp. Why she had to have bad dreams now, she had no idea.

Light had yet to break through her tiny window but there was a relief in being bathed in darkness and silence still, the entire place dead in the middle of the night like it was just another temporary home. For a week – she thought it was a week – she hadn't spoken to anyone. She hadn't seen anything except the walls around her: books had been stripped away, art ripped from the walls until she had a bed and a desk and that was it. Sometimes she heard the normal people, or Arat or Simon or another guard talking and laughing, she heard Negan next door chatting to his wife, and their hushed whispers and sweet epithets too low for her to really make out.

Mallory wasn't getting used to the isolation she'd feared, even when silence made it easier to think that nothing had changed and she was safe. In the dark and the quiet, she could pretend that the world was just dormant, another night of unbroken peace and ease. Then minutes stretched to hours, turning to days without end.

Sleep wouldn't come back any time soon now either, so she levered herself up and untangled aching limbs from the sheets, sitting up in her bed. Except, as Mallory reminded herself, it wasn't really _hers_. Nothing in the room was hers, except for her own body and the photograph hidden inside the mattress stuffing, pushed inside a tiny hole she'd found in a seam. That photo was too-worn now, she supposed. Every moment Mal imagined what her baby might have looked like, what colour its eyes might have been, she felt just a little more broken. She'd survived so long without that pushing into her head and now that he had locked her away for a week with _nothing_ , she had only that image to dwell on. She hoped it had been a girl but that future had been taken away from her a long time ago; it didn't achieve anything, dreaming of her baby.

That past life was fading – faces of her mother and her father, of her friends and the music of her grandmother, laughter of people she knew. No matter how much Mallory had strained to recover her memories of home, crudely describing them to people along the way, they had slipped away from her vivid mind. She would go over the same process repeatedly, when people in her groups died and others joined, an endless cycle of story that felt more like a lie the more she told it, playing Chinese whispers by herself. Negan was the only memory that hadn't faded completely before she had met him again and now it was a cruel taunt to what she'd lost; a middle finger being waved at her by her own brain because she wasn't allowed to remember people who loved her, just the asshole who had betrayed her.

A soft sigh escaped her lips as Mallory forced herself to move from the bed, the lingering sting between her shoulder blades lessening as she stretched out, joints popping into place when she stepped gingerly into the washroom to look at herself, almost reluctant to see what was there.

Poking at her own cheeks, there was a weird contrast between her yellowed bruises and scabbed cuts and the new pillowed feeling of her skin that had come from eating actual food; what was once dry, chapped and wind-chafed skin was soft and smooth, new and healing better than before. She even looked like a human being again – pink and warm instead of sunken and grey. Food wasn't just fuel, it was prepared by someone who obviously cared about what they were making – two days ago, there had been a tart and sweet berry crisp with honey that had made her weep with joy. She had tasted the ghost of it on her tongue ever since.

Mal rubbed vaguely-cold water into her eyes and washed the vestiges of her sleepless nights away down the drain. There'd be more nightmares again, she was sure, but they hadn't broken her so far – why would one now? She could deal with whatever Negan or anyone cared to throw at her.

She waited for the sun to rise.

* * *

"Did you miss me, sweet peach?" Negan declared through her locked door a few hours later, when her head was clearer and the sky much lighter. "I've been the rudest of assholes in not giving you the full and proper introductions around this place." She heard rattling keys and panic rise in her stomach as she frantically stuffed the sonogram back into the mattress just in time for the door to swing open dramatically and bounce off the wall.

"Negan?" she asked, sitting up straighter. Mal knew she looked like a hot mess and didn't care because it didn't matter.

He stood in front of her like Jesus himself had risen from the dead, arms spread out wide in a friendly gesture that wasn't friendly at all. "You and I are going to have some awesome fun today! I thought you might be going a little coo-coo-bananas in here, so I am your fucking entourage." He waltzed forward and grabbed her arm unceremoniously, dragging her from the bed. "Get your fucking boots on, Mallory, fucking Hell. You look like Don King dragged through a bush backwards through Biters."

Silencing her tongue, Mallory pulled on her boots slowly just to antagonise him. As soon as she looked up again, he was slinging an arm around her stiffening shoulders, the smell of his cologne or whatever it was wafting through the air like a warning. Mallory kept her own arms wrapped firmly around her chest in a silent protest, the sleeves of her sweatshirt tugged down.

"It's not like I've had much of a chance to get out, since I spend my nights away from everybody," she pointed out sarcastically. "Makes it hard to be socially included. It's important for me to fit in, Negan, really. A week's a long fucking time to stare at the ceiling."

"Could not agree more," he replied in a chipper tone as he slipped his arm from around her shoulder, pulling her own from her chest and taking her hand in his instead. Mallory ruffled, her back straightening when he gripped her as tightly as he would Lucille. "It's fucking done the world of good for my fucking reputation though," he laughed and her eyes flared in flat-out-fire. "I am no longer a melting little marshmallow for my redhead girl. I owe you for that."

"Glad to be of service to you," she said, trying not to explode.

"I think you're starting to smell though, and the first thing we normally do for newbies – after taking half their shit," he chuckled "– is introductions and the all-star tour. I haven't even let you say hello to anybody, have I?"

Mal resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him, instead settling for more sarcasm. "Hey, d'you think maybe that's why they all hate me so much? I thought they were jealous of my new digs."

Nonplussed, he carried on, pulling her behind him like one of those old-fashioned toys. "No, Mallory, it's totally your hair. Not everybody can pull off that colour in the apocalypse." His fingers squeezed around hers in admonishment, begging her to step out of line again as they passed a guard. Her lips clamped shut. "It won't take too long and there might even be a surprise waiting for you. Can you guess what the surprise is?"

It said a lot about her that her first thought was that it'd be something fucking awful – maybe he'd skinned Peter or gone back for her mother's corpse and strung it up on the roof as a flag. His surprises weren't really ones she wanted these days.

"Is it a lollipop?" Mallory said quietly, not wanting to push her limits, or his, too far to deserve a whacking.

His dark eyes sparkled in mirth. "No, but I can give you something to suck on later if you want."

"Well that one's my fault," she mumbled to herself.

Negan walked her down another set of metal stairs, the railing shaking with his booted thuds until she could hear life. There were voices, stilted but happy laughter and the sound of humanity, of normality, that grew louder to more they walked towards it.

"First stop's gonna be the kitchen. Can't you just smell that fucking bread cooking?" Negan said, answering a question she hadn't asked. "Swear to Jesus himself, tastes better than it used to from that Kroger."

There was a nervousness in her stomach suddenly as the noises grew louder, Negan pushing open a door with frosted glass and chipped wood and everything stopped. All the sounds vanished from the vast room almost instantly as they stepped inside; everyone in the canteen-like kitchen suddenly dropped to their knees at the sight of their all-glorious, fearless leader and his pet. Her eyes darted around, people and faces she didn't know looking back up at her with expressions ranging from curiosity to disgust to nonchalance. It was unnerving to be the only one besides Negan to be standing even as she refused to kneel for him.

The man himself simply gestured with his free hand and everybody got back onto their feet, returning to their jobs – she noticed there was no more talking, no more laughing, like he had sucked the life from the room and put it on a ventilator to keep it barely alive.

"Does everybody do that all the time?" she said as Negan was presented with a tray of fresh baked bread, still steaming slightly. Her mouth watered. "The kneeling has to cut into productivity."

Picking a roll before the young boy ran off, he tore off a chunk and offered it to Mallory before taking her hand once more, seemingly unwilling to let go for more than a moment lest she run. "I'm willing to sacrifice a little productivity for some fucking appreciation," he grumbled with his mouth full.

"How many people live here?" she asked, reluctantly taking a bite of the bread; it was chewy, but warm and good and smelled too much of Thanksgiving at home. She ate most of it within a minute, her stomach achingly empty.

"Fucked if I know," he replied. "Don't keep count; people come in, people die… we aren't exactly that fucking choosy. Hell, we kept you and that dickweed up in the med bay."

Mallory felt another stab: so Peter was still in the makeshift hospital, probably seething and full of bitterness in her direction. Mal slipped her eyes away from Negan's, staring endlessly at the floor. "You don't know the name of anyone here, do you?" she asked, looking back up at him after composing herself. "If you can even remember one, I'd be surprised."

"That tall son of a bitch is Steve," Negan gestured randomly behind him, not waiting to defend himself from her accusation. "Nice guy, kind of dumb sometimes but his girl loves him so that's all that matters, right? Plus, he knows how to make good home brew."

Her lips twitched as she tried not to smile or outright laugh. "That's such bullshit, Negan."

Rolling his eyes, he whistled at the tall guy, who came over almost instantly, nearly tripping over his own gangly limbs. How this giant had survived hordes of Biters without attracting attention and getting eaten, she didn't know.

"Introduce yourself to Mallory, tell her what you do here," Negan ordered lazily, chewing another hunk of bread from his roll.

The guy and his wide eyes looked almost scared to answer, piping up after a moment. "M…my name is Steve, ma'am, I look after the yeast cultures for the bread and I brew some beer. Working on a nice batch of bourbon now," he said in a thick accent, maybe Kentucky given the drink he was making. "Another couple weeks and it'll be ready, sir," he added to Negan. Mallory felt the bread heavy in her gut: Negan couldn't know everybody and the idea of it being possible made her bristle.

"That's my guy," Negan grinned, eating the last of his bread. "My kitchen MVP. Now, fuck off back to work."

It was amazing how quickly Steve scurried away, burned by the friendliness shown by his boss. "I take it that guy was a plant?" Mal asked after a moment of quiet.

He simply laughed and lead her back out of the room, the talking resuming as they walked through a different exit, strolling through the whole kitchen and watching the people. "Jesus, you really hate to fucking lose, don't you?" he asked, shaking his head. "Can't even begin to think that maybe I do actually give a shit about something."

Mal had another easy retort on her tongue when he tugged on her hand almost painfully and pulled her along. "Okay, fine, fuck, you know people," she admitted reluctantly. "Doesn't mean they like you. There's a difference between respect and making people so scared of you that they go silent in your presence."

"Yeah, I'm the big bad wolf, baby," he replied almost proudly, taking her down another wide hallway towards large, double doors. "I'm an asshole, I'm a vicious psychopathic, murdering son of a bitch for feeding all these people," he muttered, parroting every attack she had against him. "But listen. Just fucking stop, Princess; stop talking and listen. It's time for your surprise… and I really can't fucking wait til you see what I got for you."

She could hear it between the beats of her heart, so clear that every other thing fell away to the sides. Piano keys were twinkling, juvenile as someone tried to play Chopsticks. Negan seamlessly let her hand go and she stood frozen to the spot, her eyes pallid and trained on the object set back from mismatched picnic tables. He simply watched her face and broke into a tiny, twisted smile, one of victory and empathy. Just looking at the damn thing, it brought it all back. The last time Mallory had set a finger on a piano key was his bedroom and the world had spun too far out of control. Her fingers twitched uncomfortably, only missing his hand now that she was faced with his so-called present.

It was a joke. It was all a fucking joke.

"Is that-"

"Oh, I know. I'm far too fucking kind," he replied quietly, the feeling grazing her neck even as he stood back. "I had some guys bring it down from upstairs, it's all I been hearing for days now, that fucking racket. Chopsticks and motherfucking Für Elise and random shit I really don't care to hear anymore. Nobody can play except you, right?" Negan asked her almost mockingly. "So, get in there and play something. I want you to."

Every time even a bad note was played, it was like her whole brain fired up every synapse, the good memories that had faded and the new bad ones criss-crossing until she didn't know how to feel.

"Is this a test?" she muttered, tearing her eyes away from the piano and back to its rightful owner.

"It's a gift," Negan replied, bringing his hands up to squeeze both her shoulders and push her forwards. "You love pianos, Mallory. It's not a trick; I just want you to fucking play."

Smiling faces and happy memories flooded her back in and drowned her, drawing her in towards the large space full of benches and children's toys, books on the tables, a wall full of crayon pictures, groups of people talking. When she taught, when she played before, it was nothing but glee and talent from her fingertips. One panic attack at his piano had rendered her hesitant.

Negan pushed her forwards without another word between them. Mal shook herself out, trying to focus on the faces of the kids as she walked up to the thing, taking in the steady, practised breaths she took after her nightmares. Negan, who was simply watching through the glass, waiting for her to sink or swim again, went unnoticed by her or anyone.

Three little kids, and one older one, fought and scrapped over who got to play the piano next, poking random keys and trying to make a coherent song appear out of thin air. Everything she saw was like the nightmares she had now and the dreams she dreamt not long after she'd lost all her hope for a peaceful ending, watching it leech out of her with Aimee's blood. People glanced at her as she made her way towards the piano, proudly set back from the benches, a lighthouse calling her home and warning her of rocky shores.

Mallory watched the kids mess about and argue for a moment, almost scared as she was, before she leant over them all to play a one-handed scale; a simple, three second scale, notes flowing from her trepidation. It was ridiculous how easy her fingers found the keys again, as if the time she'd spent away from it after her breakdown was a blink of an eye. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips and she laughed, the sound catching a little as the children parted, like they just wanted to hear her play. Her panic ebbed away slowly as she found home.

"You can play that thing?" one little girl asked her as she looked at her tentatively; she couldn't have been more than six years old.

"A little, yeah," Mallory said to her in a soft voice, sitting on the stool as they all made way for her. Why was she so scared of something she loved? "Want to hear me play?"

All her audience nodded in reply, backing away as Mal took another breath, focussing her head on the good that piano had brought her. Her head cleared as she played her upbeat song, fingers slipping over the ivory keys with remembered ease. She played a random Disney song, the children's smiles widening, begging for more as it ended and she started another. It wasn't until after she'd finished playing a song from The Little Mermaid that the scrabbling started again, small fingers pressing random keys with her and laughing as they got more into real piano playing. Every song, every note she hit took away a tiny bit of the rocky shore.

"I want a go!" a boy with dirty blonde hair asked eagerly, standing at one end of the piano, looking like he'd burst if he didn't get to poke a key soon.

"No, it's my turn!" the little girl argued back just as vehemently.

Mal smiled easier now, ignorant of the adults all watching her with curiosity as they talked amongst themselves. "How about we start with me showing you all a song. Anyone remember any lullabies?"

"Twinkle, twinkle little star?" the girl replied after a moment, tentatively asking for something so normal, so child-like.

Nodding, Mal set to playing and let the song roll off her fingers like water down her throat now that her head was clearing. They were songs she'd learnt from her grandmother – she had learnt to play lullabies first and it had become second nature to play them, easy notes, easy words, easy tunes. She got the children singing the verses, too, until everything went deathly quiet; the adults stopped talking, the children had stopped singing and her piano music echoed lonely in the room, music without ears listening avidly. It wasn't until she turned around that Mal remembered Negan.

"You didn't have to stop on my account," he said, his arms folded over his chest and a strange smile on his face. Everybody had paused what they were doing and kneeled to him in a second, with only Mallory again caught in the space between supplicant and protestor. "I was listening from the door and just had to come inside; pretty nice to hear some actual music, isn't it, kids?"

Not waiting for a response from anyone, he simply crooked a finger in her direction and Mallory reluctantly complied, standing up and walking over to him. Negan towered over everyone in the room – even her – with that powerful air as he levered her to stand in front of him with his hands on her shoulders once more, presenting her to the crowd as a prize.

"We were just playing-" she protested softly so the kids didn't hear, thinking she was in trouble again for not breaking like he wanted and instead taking pleasure.

"Everybody!" Negan called out, watching as every soul stood up, as stiff and silent as Mal. "This is Mallory and she is probably the best damn pianist you got, which really isn't saying much round here, huh? Since everybody's been on their best behaviour lately, I'm giving you a gift – this girl and that thing." Her eyes darted around to the people staring at her warily now, while her cheeks reddened imperceptibly from the attention. "She is here to play for you every fucking day between 7am and 9am, starting tomorrow, so you better put her to some good use and be nice to her; she's my absolute-super-duper favourite." He squeezed her shoulder tenderly, a thumb rubbing down the back where nobody could see. Her skin chilled. "Work starts in a half hour so I suggest you get your shit in order and the kids to school."

Steering her away, Mal let out a breath she didn't realise she was holding, everyone jerking back into animation. "Negan, I don't understand," she said quietly as she looked up at the giant of a man. "You're just giving them your piano? And me?"

"It was just rotting in my bedroom, going to waste, just like you're going to waste stuck in that room for night after night and day after day," he replied, his features softening from the commanding Negan into the one she knew too well, now that his attention was entirely focussed on her. "I keep noticing that about you, especially in that fucking bathroom, all pissed off and uppity," he whispered, voice dropping low enough that she had to strain to hear him. "Then I realised something: I have never ever seen you really fucking smile. Like fucking ever, isn't that crazy?" He leaned back, tipping his fingers under her chin. "I liked seeing that smile back again today, that's the hot little Mama I remember." She watched him swallow thickly in his throat before he reached out to push her hair back behind her ear, Mallory unflinching. "Does this make you happy, Princess? I so want you to be happy, even if it means you squeezing my nuts. Well," he smirked, "I'd have preferred it if you were nicer but I'm amenable to a squeeze or two from time to time."

Mal was silent and still as she looked at the man, trying to remember to look him in the eye. He'd attempted sincere with her for years and pulled off a fake-out well; well enough that she never trusted his sincerity. "I love playing for those children," she cleared her throat, hearing the kids playing the notes tentatively in the background. "So I guess you can say that it made me happy. If you want to say that."

Suddenly, Negan laughed with a bark, just looking at her. The man was a pure-blood pro. "God, that was fucking intense, wasn't it? Makes you wanna jump my bones, all this goddamn anger. I feel that burning off you, Princess. Why don't you take today, walk round here, talk to people if you want. Maybe with a little taste, you'll see then, what this place does to people like you. I'd really fucking hate to disappoint you in that regard."

Mal didn't know or want to know the real reason – if he was hiding another motive – because it would always taint the happiness she'd had in the last five minutes of her life. Even if he hadn't meant to, he had given her back her happy memories and a chance to feel them again every morning. It made her sick that she owed him one.

"Fine," she replied, though her throat felt closed-up. "I will."

"Yeah, well, you're fucking welcome. Come knock on my door at 5, I'll be waiting for you," he chuckled as he stepped back. "We'll talk about everything you want over dinner and you can tell me about your day. Just do me a favour; no more fucking Für Elise, please."

And that was how he left her, with her heart hammering and a taste of freedom on her lips.

* * *

Mallory hated to lose. It was inside her type A personality, a kind of throbbing need to be right, to win, to control; she'd credited that and that alone with how she'd gotten so far into the apocalypse without getting herself killed. Sitting in with the kids and their lessons, an ache grew inside her that she squashed – Negan had no way of knowing what this was doing to her but she blamed him all the same for the tightness in her gut and the future she hadn't had. When she'd found out about her own pregnancy, she'd contemplated telling Negan but it seemed wrong to even involve him. She couldn't stand to be near the man, let alone raise a child with him. Nature had resolved that issue though, and the pain still throbbed.

But now, there were these kids around here. Ones who were still learning their states and the capitols, how to read and do some math too – everything they should be learning in the old world. Everybody in the Sanctuary seemed to have some semblance of a job or a purpose in the least in earning their points; some people talked to her and others didn't, preferring to keep their distance away from her even when she tried her hardest to look like anyone else.

All morning she had ignored the siren call of the med bay and the man who was, according to Negan, still inside it. The kids kept dragging her back to the piano when their lessons broke up, making her play songs by offering her points for the service, which Mallory flat-out refused to take. Music wasn't something she was willing to trade for their equivalent of an allowance – not when she realised how it made her so fucking happy too, and gave her an excuse to prolong the inevitable. The fear that had come when she played last in Negan's bedroom disappeared when Sarah, the little girl, asked her to play another lullaby.

Mal knew she was prolonging the inevitable when the children went back to their guardians with animated smiles and she found herself at a loss. The steps she took towards the med bay were heavy and dragging, the noises desperate to swallow her new fear of seeing her only friend. Peter had to hate her. He had every reason to, when he was stuck in there with one hand missing and she'd just spent the day laughing and having fun, not much of a care in the world. Mal would hate that girl too, even if she'd spent all week locked in a room. He had no way of knowing that, and might not even believe her. The whole thing was an exercise in self-punishment.

"I don't know what you think you're doing here," Peter croaked out when she saw him, hooked to some kind of tubing that went into his good arm. He looked like she felt. "But you should get the fuck out now before Negan sees and I lose the other hand."

Mallory stood defiantly, glancing around for the doctor. He could tell Negan whatever he wanted now, nothing was secret here. She didn't particularly care. "He let me out this morning. You're not losing anything else, Pete."

Her friend looked gaunt and seemed to pale more as he lay there in his hospital bed, struggling with something. "You haven't called me Pete in months, _Allie_." He replied through gritted teeth as he moved to sit up further, Mallory rushing to help him.

"You have to be like this?" she muttered as she slid her arm under his chest and helped him sit. "I can't undo what I did, never have been able to. I can't give you back what I took."

"You talking about my hand or my sister?" Peter choked out, gripping his left arm with his only palm. "We should have never gone into that fucking house, never should have hid from them. We always did the smash and grab and run, why the fuck did we hide? It's been driving me goddamn crazy."

She shook her head, feeling the happiness at spending the day with the kids seep out of her bit by bit just by looking at her failures. "I… I don't know. Maybe I wanted to make that place work as a home, or just do something other than run. I can't remember the last time I ran from a living person now."

Peter sighed softly, shaking his head. "What are you even doing here? It's been a week and I haven't seen you. Why now?"

Grabbing a wooden stool, she sat back from his bed and rubbed her palms down her thighs nervously. "He kept me locked in my room alone for days. Today he just came and got me out," she muttered, daring to look into Peter's eyes. "I'm not even sure why today, let alone why I'm here." She sighed under her breath. "I think it was to make me see this place, meet the people so I'd break after all that time alone. I stopped and smelled the flowers – literally, I stopped and smelled the flowers outside." Mal almost laughed, tears beading up again as she recalled the smell of the gardenias they had grown for no reason she could think up. "They're damn good flowers too, you have to see them."

"Yeah, I've seen them," Peter said warily, looking at her intently. "Met the people, talked to them, played with the kids. None of it made me sound like you fucking sound now. What's going on?"

"I'm sick of his games, I'm sick of being alone. I went fucking insane in there, Peter," Mal muttered softly, feeling the weight fall off her chest as she admitted what she had denied for days. "I think he wanted me to taste what it was like to fall in line, you know? It felt nice but… he's still playing games, trying to get under my skin. I put you in here, I killed Aimee, I did so many fucking bad things, Peter, I know that," she said in a hurried, hushed whisper, afraid of her own words. "But nothing's stopped me from still feeling happy that this place exists for those kids-"

Peter shook his head, eyes pale and lost. "Stop it." He glared at her, his anger and pain simmering under the surface. "Listen to yourself. You sound like some moron with her head in the clouds. Wake up, Mal, it's all a fucking manipulation and you're letting him walk you to it."

"Don't you think I don't know that?!" she sniped back, leaning in closer. "I know what he's trying to do? The isolation and the kids and a piano and letting me walk around on my own? Negan is smarter than me, he's ruthless when it comes to what he wants."

"And he wants you," Peter shot back. "To own you."

Mallory gave a short nod, wiping her wet cheeks. "What you wanted me to do before –"

"No, I –"

Her fingers clamped over his mouth, knowing that if she didn't say it now then she never would. "What you wanted me to do before, I think I can… I know a way. But…"

Peter used his hand to tug her palm away from him, looking up at her like she was a bomb to diffuse. "You have to stop yourself from falling for that asshole again, Mallory. You can't let him back in to your head, no matter what. He's poison." Peter sat up now, the tubes tugging along with him, his face desperate. "You've always hated being on your own," he demanded, her energy draining along with his. "Negan put you in a cage, drip fed you, punished me to spite you and still you could end up thinking 'maybe it's not so bad' because you can't bear the thought of being on your own and there's that man who you loved once upon a time. It's not a fairytale, Mallory, it's a disaster waiting to happen."

Denying it wasn't any use. She simply nodded and set her jaw. "You're right. I don't want to be on my own and I don't want to be a puppet." Her tongue dashed out to wet her dry lips, blue eyes pale and watery again. "I used to think about deserted islands where Biters didn't exist, when we were holed up together. And then we learned that everyone turns into one of those things, eventually. It's in our blood now, isn't it?" Unable to help herself, she pushed Peter's messy, dark hair away from his clammy skin. "Maybe it changed us as people too – nobody's the same anymore, are they? Cages aren't like cages, they keep us safe. Boundaries keep moving, you go further and further because everybody else does. Well… what if I don't do it like that?" she said, eyes wide and innocent. "If I keep pushing, the world's just going to push back like it always has."

"What are you going to do?" he asked with a panicked look on his face.

Biting her lip now, she shook her head. "I can't blow this place up. I can't… I can't keep pushing those kinds of boundaries but if I get him to think I love him again, I can do some real fucking damage, can't I?" Her voice seethed, the timbre so low that she could barely hear herself. "I can win."

"Be careful." Peter replied excitedly, turning his head to check for eavesdroppers. "If you still love Negan…" he practically spat the name. "Even if you think maybe you could love him one day, then you should just run. Get out of this place and don't look back. You were pregnant with his baby, Mallory, that doesn't just go away."

Her heart stung again and hardened in an instant. "That baby was never meant to be," she stated carefully, slipping backwards away from Peter. "When he finds out, it'll be because I told him and nobody else. What he's doing to me now isn't anything as bad as what he did back then, believe me. I'll win, Peter. I promise you now, even if it means he kills me for it."

There was a silent moment between them both, a slide of eyes meeting and parting. Peter could have been a man she loved if Negan hadn't come along again, whistling as he swung his bat. Mallory thought that maybe that was what her friend was angriest about, that Negan hadn't just hurt them but had ruined any possible future too. She could see the good in Peter as easily as she saw the yearning and wanted to make him happy after all she'd taken away from them both. If she took a step backwards into a lion's den, maybe they could both move forwards into some semblance of safety.

"Just be careful," he muttered, slipping back into the bed, his eyes distant.

"I have to go. I have to –"

"Bye, Allie," Peter said pointedly before she turned to leave. Mal didn't say goodbye back as she slipped away, wondering if it was possible to pretend to love Negan again and not feel it for real, even a little bit. That was the risk she had to take, she supposed.

* * *

" _I fucking love gardenias," Negan grinned as Mallory handed him a bunch of them with a matching smirk on her face as they stood together in the flower section of a grocery store. "You treat me so good, baby."_

" _I just want you to have pretty things," she cooed, pinching his cheek playfully. "Can't say no to that face."_

 _His smile and laughter was infectious, having spent most of the weekend in each other's company, only venturing out now because they were running low on supplies and her car was crapped out. Instead, like a gentleman, he'd offered to take her. Her hair was messily scraped into a clip at the back of her head, falling in wild tendrils around her soft cheeks, Negan just as chaotically put back together again. If you knew what you were looking at, it was obvious what was going on._

 _Mal pulled some tubs of salsa from a high refrigerator shelf before slipping them into the cart he was pushing along the aisle for her. "Gardenias, chocolate spread, walnut loaf and salsa. You are just awesome at grocery shopping. Remind me to introduce you to a thing called 'being an adult'. It sucks but you get used to the concept."_

" _I just love that you think you're so funny," Mal retorted, lining up a shot and pitching a bag of tortilla chips into the cart. "Wait until we get to the lubricant section, you won't be talking about responsible shopping and budgets then."_

 _He chuckled and threw a box of cookies into her cart as they turned into another aisle. Luckily the place was almost deserted at 9pm, just stressed out business people and new fathers hunting for diapers and the right kind of Cheetos. It reminded her of high school and her shoplifting days, prime time for sticky fingers and lazy watchmen._

" _You do this often?" he asked, eyes roaming down to her ass just because he could in that setting, as near alone in public as was possible. "Run out of everything and forget to buy food?"_

" _Don't have enough money for it half the time," she admitted, almost reluctantly. "Rent comes first, then bills if they're past due, then food. I usually steal from my parents or the teacher's lounge."_

 _Negan narrowed his eyes at her, "Was it you who took the bag of Reese's I hid in a box of granola?"_

 _Mal bit her lip and laughed, putting candy on her list so that she could repay him. "I was living off eggs, I was desperate for something else."_

" _So why can't you fucking afford real food?" he asked bluntly, putting a few more items into her cart – sensible things like coffee, sugar, dried pasta. "I thought you were getting all those gigs from the rich assholes."_

" _Turns out rich assholes got rich because they don't pay their bills on time," Mallory replied flippantly, not looking at him. "Plus, the school cut some funding to my programme so I agreed to take a pay cut to keep the class going til the end of the year."_

 _Silence wasn't a good sign with him, she'd learned. His head ticked into overdrive and she waited for the inevitable._

" _How is it legal to take a fucking pay cut when you're on minimum wage to fucking begin with?" he growled, gripping the bar of the cart._

 _Regretting bringing in the subject of money, Mal sighed. "Look, I get that you're well-off but I'm not. I have to pick my battles because it was either take a cut or they scrap the whole thing and I'm out of the only steady pay check I get."_

" _That's not fucking legal, Mallory-"_

" _I know that, Negan," she parried, slipping her hand over his tense shoulder. "I'm picking the battles I fight, okay? I'll see the money from the private gigs soon, it's just that you caught me on a bad month, that's all."_

 _The fire seemed to go out of him at her reassuring touch, his anger melting into a mere possessive streak – those she could handle. "Fine," he grumbled, "But I am paying for all this food, okay? Don't you dare argue with me on this, Princess, you won't appreciate the fucking consequences."_

 _Thinking of better things to do than argue, she leant up on her toes and kissed his cheek softly in silent thanks for the gesture. Mallory knew when he was being an asshole to control her and when he was just being kind in his own way, and was mature enough to appreciate when it was the latter._

" _Thank you," she said sincerely. "I can think of a few ways to repay you when we're back at my place, if you're up for experiencing at least some fucking consequences."_

 _He couldn't keep his hands off her after she said that, snaking his rough fingertips down to the back of her shirt until he hit her skin, stroking in teasing flicks. "That a promise?" he asked with a soft smirk, completely focussed on her._

" _I just said so, didn't I?" Mal replied, taking over the pushing of the cart. "Go grab me some milk? I'll meet you at the checkout."_

 _A swift hand smacked her ass as he stalked off laughing, leaving her rolling her eyes at his childish antics. He'd been so fucking tactile, touching her and kissing her but it was a different kind of change in their dynamic. He smiled brighter, laughed louder, made her laugh and talked about himself more. She burst into laughter as he skipped towards the dairy aisle while she pushed the cart to the back of the only open line._

" _Your husband's kinda cute, honey," the middle-aged woman in nurse's uniform in front of her said, her voice lilted with a southern accent. "If I was ten years younger, mmhmm…"_

" _Hands off," Mallory winked at the lady, not bothering to correct her as she loaded her own items onto the belt. "He is all mine and then some."_

" _I don't doubt it, he following you round like a smitten little puppy dog," she laughed as she handed the guy on the register her cash, eyes sparkling in mirth as she spotted the contents of Mallory's purchases, holding up a hand in placation. "You do you, honey, ride his sweet ass. Nice to meet y'all, anyway."_

 _Mallory chuckled wryly to herself as they loaded up the bags, Negan's hands still cupping around the edges of her ass and skimming her ribcage. When he took her hand in his as they walked back to the car though, a simple gesture, her heart thudded for a flash of a moment._

" _Negan?" Mal asked in that tone, bags in her other hand._

" _Motherfucking... is this going to be about something I don't wanna fucking talk about?" he groused mockingly in readiness._

" _Maybe?" she bit her lip. "It's just… this is so fucking domestic." She laughed at the absurdity. "You one had me bent over your desk and whooped my ass with a ping pong paddle, said we had to keep this on the down-low and now here we are."_

" _Yeah, here we fucking are," he replied nonchalantly. "Things change, Princess, just roll with it."_

 _Her brain, the asshole that it was, was poking at her to ask what their relationship was. "When you say that things have changed…" she asked as he fished his car keys from his jeans pocket. "Does that mean we've changed too?"_

 _Negan practically ripped open the car door, dropping her hand in the process. "It means I like fucking being with you, Jesus…" he pulled the bags from her hands and dumped them onto the back seat of his car before slamming the door shut again. "You always gotta push it, Mallory?"_

 _Rolling her eyes and squashing down her feelings again, she pushed past him to reach for the handle, getting the car door open an inch before his palm shoved it closed again. "Negan, what the fuck?! What is this, I can't ask what the fuck's going on with… this without you acting like a child?"_

" _I was having a great night tonight, we were laughing and having some fun, why you ruining it with all that 'where is this going' bullshit?" he said pointedly, staring her down. "I only went to fetch you some fucking milk and now what?"_

" _I don't think you've ever held my hand in public before," Mal admitted tenderly, loathing to say it now he was mad. It'd just make him madder. "I liked pretending, so sue me. I liked it. It's not real, why do you care?"_

 _Instead of answering, he pressed her swiftly up against the car and kissed her until her skin tingled. Negan would often do this, distract her with his lips and tongue and teeth until she forgot what was bugging her and was instead reminded that nothing mattered except them. It never failed to work; not when his hips pressed into hers insistently and her skin stuck to the metal of his car when he pulled her shirt up a little._

" _Mallory," he muttered breathlessly, that cocky smirk back on his lips like nothing had happened. "I never said you couldn't hold my fucking hand, okay? Hold it whenever you want…."_

"… _when we're alone," she added after a moment, her face falling. "Yeah, I know."_

 _He looked at her like he wanted to say something but thought better of it and looked down instead, thumbs trailing along the soft skin of her stomach that he'd exposed. "I'll make you a promise, Mallory. One day, I promise on my grandmother's grave that I will take you out for a real date. Dinner, dancing, fucking in the bathroom of the restaurant. I think I owe you that at least, don't I?" Negan smirked as she smiled again. "There we go. That's better. You are even more beautiful now."_

" _What's better?" Mal asked, slipping her fingers over his jacket lapel._

" _Your smile. I hate fucking disappointing you, Princess. Breaks my goddamn heart to see you looking so sad. I know I'm a motherfucking catch and everything." He leant in to kiss her again, reaching for her shirt._

 _Mallory's hands stopped him, laughing as she pushed at his wrists. "I am not having sex with you up against a car in front of a Kroger." She shook her head and patted his chest. "You're good in bed but not even make-up sex is worth getting arrested for public indecency again."_

" _Again?" he asked as he backed away like she requested, turning his brow at her with curiosity. "Oh, you are telling me that story when we get home."_

* * *

Mal had lived under the pretence of a false name for as long as the Biters had been walking, and even the first real few people she'd met – and lost – only knew her by that name. At the time, she'd told herself that calling herself Allie was a chance at a new start. Maybe Mallory had died alongside her own mother and she was somehow different in comparison when the truth was that she really, really wasn't.

Mal hadn't banked, in all honesty, on seeing Negan again and contemplating what she was contemplating when striding towards his office like a woman on a mission. Months upon months, year upon year, she'd kept that blurry, faded sonogram picture by her side as a reminder of what she had survived, even when there was no hope and no end in sight – there was always the miscarriage and her broken heart. The edges of the photo were tattering now, the picture creasing down the middle since she had folded and re-folded it so many times. The wavy lines traced with fingertips like patterns her own mother had stroked over her forehead when she was a child. Mallory would never get to do that to her baby – she would never have anything like it.

Part of her wanted to share that loss with the rose-tinted version of Negan that existed only in her memories. The man he proclaimed to be back when she loved him would support her if he knew; Mal had imagined over and over again the look in his eyes when she told him that she was going to have the child he'd always wanted with Lucille. It was the one thing Mallory could have given him that she couldn't. Telling the Negan that existed now, the one with a barbed wire bat, wouldn't be so rosy, she thought; he would find out, one day, and everything would shift and change yet again. Another firework to add to the celebration. She'd save it for the finale.

Guards littered the walkways as she grew closer to his office, remembering the same paths with well-worn soles. Paranoia must have filtered through that thick skull of his, she reckoned, with the amount of armed defence he had, even if he didn't show a single strain of fear to the public. He hadn't until that night in the bathroom. Mallory had felt it then, a tension and a fear for the briefest of seconds when Negan touched her wounds and cleansed her skin as tenderly and chastely as she needed. Allie, or what remained of her, had died completely that night and she was Mallory again, reclaiming herself to put everything back on the line and stride back into his office with a real plan, to deceive the only man she'd ever really loved. She couldn't bring down Negan's oppression, she couldn't wreck the Sanctuary or blow the people to pieces – but she could fucking break him like he tried to do her.

Passing yet another guard with yet another gun, she felt the loss of her own weapons like a missing limb. There could have been a knife at her hip and a reflex to grab it but he'd killed that too and she didn't even flinch for the absent weapon when faced with the barrel of a shotgun. The guard – face familiar and yet so generic it could have been anyone – nodded once like a good little boy and let her pass forward, neither having to say a word to the other.

She knew, deep down, that what she was doing would be the make or break. Either she would hurt him or she'd fall back in love with him.

Mallory raised a fist and knocked.


	12. Chapter 12

The knocks felt hollow; one, two, three.

Her heart fell into her stomach as the door to Negan's office swung open and the man himself stood there in front of her, leaning on the jamb like he'd been waiting at the ready. The visual of him towering over her – immaculately presented – brought her hurtling back to every single time she'd run over to his house over the weekends for a quick fuck. He even had the same stubble on his cheek, the ever-present five o'clock shadow peppered with flecks of white that made him look more human. And there she was, dressed limply in ratty clothes with lank hair and scars. She couldn't have looked more out of place if she'd tried.

"Glad you decided to turn up, Princess, just like old times. Me waiting on you to knock at the door…" he uttered lazily, without hesitation in reading her expression though he blocked her view of his office. "Now I am not the type of guy to sleep with a girl on a first date but you play your cards right and maybe I'll walk you home safe after dinner." Negan leaned into her ear a little more and smirked. "I got them to bring up something special just for us."

As he stepped gallantly aside to let her through, Mallory realised that when he said the word 'date', he meant it; the lights inside were dimmed just enough so that her eye caught the candles glowing in the middle of the room, a table set for two with giant silvery dome cloches hiding their dinner. The scene was painted there as if it had always existed, a little round bistro table with a white tablecloth and a short bunch of gardenias in a vase in the middle as decoration. He had built them a first date in the middle of his office and had done a half-way decent job of it too – more than he'd ever done when she loved him.

"You did all this?" Mal asked hesitantly as she stepped inside, walking the line in her tone of voice somewhere between mistrust and disbelief. Her rose-tinted Negan would never have done anything like this for her benefit.

The door snapped shut and the man himself brushed past her, his belts clanking as he did. "Since when did I ever fucking do anything by halves?" He asked, pulling one of the chairs out and gesturing at her expectantly, that playful smile on his face again though there was a hint of something in his eyes she couldn't – or wouldn't – place. She didn't move. "For fuck's sake, Mallory, sit the fuck down, it's not gonna bite. I might, though, if you keep being so gosh darn rude."

"I guess I wasn't expecting you to actually go to any trouble. Especially for me." It was after a moment's hesitation that she decided to take his proffered chair, Negan tucking her in close to the table and brushing her shoulder with little fanfare about doing so. "I don't think you've ever done anything as… un-you before."

It was just so fucking domestic. Mal's hand reached out to touch the gardenias in the vase, wondering if he had gone down to the garden and cut them himself or whether he had someone else do it for him. Where did he find matching silverware and cloches? Had they come from Hilltop too, just like her own décor? How long had he been collecting things like he expected to have a date? Maybe she was getting the cast-offs from his wives.

"You and me both know that I have owed you a real fucking date for a long damn time," Negan muttered as he pulled a wine bottle from a bucket of ice on the floor. He had white and rosé, because of course he remembered that she hated red wine. "In fact, I think I made a fucking promise to you. I keep my fucking promises, don't I? I'm fairly sure I do."

She snorted in mock-laughter as he poured them both a glass of white, Mal shooting him an incredulous look. "You most certainly do not. Technically you don't even break them, Negan, it's that you move the goal posts all the damn time. Nobody can fucking keep up with you. One second, you're beating some asshole's face in and the next you're making him dinner."

Negan laughed outright to her face and shrugged with nonchalance at her accusations. "Maybe, but at least I'm not boring as fuck. Always leave 'em guessing, Princess."

"Can't disagree there," Mallory mumbled a little bitterly, sipping at the wine – she had to remember to go easy on the alcohol since it had been a long damn time since she'd had anything that strong to drink; it wouldn't go well, being drunk in his vicinity. Her tongue got loose enough as it was.

"I don't have a lot of regrets," he said, downing half his glass in a mouthful like the admission burnt his mouth. "But I am man enough to admit that I should have done this for you a long time ago, treated you better and all that bullshit. Men in general don't treat their women well enough, do they? Or, maybe they did and it was just me who was the bastard son of a bitch."

Looking down at the wine glass in her hands, she thought about how she used to want so desperately to be treated as more than a dirty secret, even though they both knew that he would never have done it while Lucille was alive. She had kidded herself for months that he cared about her as anything more than a glorified sex therapist. The fact that he was – in his own mind – rectifying a regret now didn't mean shit for her own feelings. That was a certainty.

"I know," Mal agreed, washing away the lie with more wine. "But it's not like I expected you to think of me as anything more than your mistress. We knew what that whole shit-storm was, promises or no promises, just that… it was what it was. Acting all romantic and lovey-dovey is more of a lie."

"Oh, that hurt, that really hurt my feelings," Negan said with a chuckle, leaning in towards her expectantly. "You're saying that you never thought that maybe I'd treat you better one day? I was a fucking asshole to you sometimes, back then, I know that. I was the prick with a dick! Even now, I keep expecting you to knee me in the balls for it, Princess."

Mallory snapped her eyes up to meet his gaze, forcing down her ire. "I never thought you cared enough about what we were to think that I'd be kneeing you in the balls over it, Negan, I mean fuck… you treated my apartment like it was your own personal brothel and only once did I object. I know I definitely never expected you to pick up a pizza on your way there, let alone take me out to dinner among people with eyes and everything. We weren't dating or playing Ken and Barbie's dream house together, it was just sex."

He grumbled in response and she thought maybe he wasn't buying her disinterested rhetoric. "Well, you know what, Mallory? This is a fucking date now," he said, slapping his hand on the table. "I went and ordered your favourite and everything, don't think I don't remember." Negan swiftly and deftly lifted the silver cloche away from her. It was filet – mid-rare, juicy, salty meat with thick cut fries and béarnaise. She could have wept at the sight of it.

"Jesus… that's actual… am I dead?" Mal said, completely off-kilter. When had she even told him that steak and fries with béarnaise was her favourite? "I feel like I'm dead."

"Not dead. Unless being at dinner with me is your idea of heaven." Negan replied with another ubiquitous smirk. His plate held the ubiquitous bloody prime rib, with onions as well as the fries and sauce, glistening on the plate. She hoped he brought dessert too.

Mallory practically dove into the meal, licking her lips as she sliced into the steak. "I should have paid you back by at least showering," she muttered, pulling out her napkin to play along with his scenario. "All this fancy food, fancy silverware, and I'm wearing three-day old clothes."

He barked in laughter, watching her eat her first mouthful with something akin to rapturous delight in his eyes. "Like I give two shakes of a fuck stick what you look like," he replied, sliding his knife across his own steak. "I seen a lot worse than… that," he gestured with the tip of his knife towards her.

The food, in her starved opinion, was the best thing she'd had since he'd fed her bacon. It was a strange consequence of being without good food for so long, that you cared when you got something so perfect. The person who had made their meals had obviously taken great love and care in cooking it all perfectly, even seasoning the pink insides of the meat. He had a good life here, she couldn't blame him for wanting to keep it up.

"You went all out, huh?" Mallory said, swiping a thick cut fry through her sauce. "Why you doing all this, Negan, really?"

"Well fuck me, Mallory, I thought you'd be the slightest bit happy for once," Negan said with half a mouth full, licking his lip. "I can put you back into your room if you want, get Simon to keep you company and serve you fucking fish sticks."

She almost laughed, the corners of her pink lips turning up. "Simon hates me," Mal replied, reaching for her wine. "I'd be better off eating dinner with Arat, at least she respects me."

"Only because you beat her ass down, that's how it works with her," Negan grinned, giving Mallory a salacious wink. "You're a leader, not a follower and Arat fucking respects leaders. But Simon? Oh boy, you are giving him the big run around." He stated pridefully. "That man of mine, he is mightily pissed off about that chunk you took out of him. Simon ain't had the jump put on him for a long fucking time – he wouldn't be my guy if he had. It's understandable that he's not exactly happy about you being here, worming your way into my dinner table. I don't do this for fucking anyone, you know."

Mallory remembered with great pride how she'd swiped at Simon's leg with a knife before he'd knocked her out cold, right when everything happened and the world changed again. "He's still pissed about that?" she asked, her cheeks going pink at the edges. "He'd still get me hand-to-hand."

"Don't matter," Negan shook his head and pointed his knife towards her again. "That's not my fucking point, my fucking point is that he had you on your back, in pain, trapped with a gun, right? Least from what I heard." He continued when she nodded softly. "And you still managed to get in a stabby-stab." Negan whistled low, sounding impressed. "I would've liked to have seen that, I really would. Simon's still being a pussy about it – it'll be worth making you his second in command just to see the look on his fucking face."

"I'm happier downstairs playing piano than I am with your army," she replied, tempering down the idea of her viciousness in a fight, not wanting to stir Simon's ego any more than she did Negan's. "You should trust me on that one, I'm no leader."

His deep eyes narrowed imperceptibly at her and she kept his gaze. "Well that's utter bullshit, Princess, but you're probably better off anyway," Negan said quietly, taking a large sip of wine. "When you're the dog with the big balls, someone's always trying to bite them off you." His knife sliced expertly into his beef, the bloodied juice running over the plate. "Every fucking day, Mallory, it's every fucking day. Some asshole comes for my balls, trying to get revenge or step into my boots. S'why I need guys like Simon, like Arat. They respect the fuck outta me and they toe the damn lines I set down on them. Fucking alpha male bullshit…" he trailed off, mumbling as he chewed vociferously.

"And you're not an alpha male?" Mal asked incredulously, her brow raised a little as he ranted and raved.

"Big fucking difference between thinking you can lead and actually putting your money where your mouth is," he said, chewing again – his mother had obviously never taught him table manners. "None of them have the fucking stones for it. You gotta know all that, you were the leader of your group before you ran them into the shit pile and got everybody killed, right? Least that's what I been hearing."

Cold ran down her spine and she froze, her breath catching in her lungs. "How do you know that?"

The chill down her back matched the coldness in his eyes as he grinned, leaning on his elbows. "Loose lips sunk your ships. Petey's got an awful loud mouth on him, Mallory. Definitely disloyal – I'd nip that in the bud before he fucks you over completely."

Peter. There had been a week or so between his injury and her being allowed out of her room. Negan had all the time in the world and took his full advantage of it. Her fingers wrapped around her knife imperceptibly tighter, her eyes snapping up.

"He told you all that, huh?" she said, jaw clenching slightly. Mal didn't know who to be angrier with, Negan or Peter.

Reaching over the table, he wrenched her fingers from around her knife, loosening her grip. "Calm the fucking fuck down; you ain't gonna stab me at the dinner table because I got a couple secrets out of your boyfriend." Negan patted her hand condescendingly.

"No, I'm not," she snapped, unable to keep her head straight. "I'm gonna stab him. Asshole."

Negan chuckled again, sitting back right in his chair. "Told you; there's always something to deal with when you got people to look after, even in people you think you trust. Maybe Petey's coming for your balls."

"He hasn't got any of his own if he's going this route," she said, forcing her racing heart to calm down. Mal hoped to God that Peter had been under extreme duress – no matter what it was that he told Negan. It was fucking unforgivable, not when he had ample chance to warn her when she'd gone to see him.

Mallory felt the heat coming from Negan's eyes as he looked at her, him draining his glass in one mouthful. "People just make dumb choices in the heat of the moment. You remember our little sniper friend you encountered at the Hilltop?" he asked, his face bathed in the candle light as he leant forward again. "The one you blocked from knocking my brains out the back of my head?"

"I remember," she mumbled, getting at her food a little viciously.

"Sniper-Rick has been after my sweet ass for a long damn time and I've exercised a lot of fucking restraint when it comes to him, I swear on Lucille herself." Negan made his own fingers into a gun shape and aimed a fingertip at his own head, miming a shot firing into his temple. "He wants my head on a goddamn silver platter, he's crazier than even you are. Still didn't have the guts to pull the trigger on me at Hilltop, though… and why's that?"

Mal knew back then. She knew now. "Because he wasn't willing to go through me."

Negan poured himself more wine and topped her glass off too. "Because he wasn't willing to go through you yet," he added pointedly. "For him, that was a dumb fucking decision he made in the heat of the moment and he'll come to regret it. You miss all the shots you don't take, Mallory. He didn't give a shit about you, so why was the point in fucking hesitating? Dumb decisions, they're the end of you."

She felt suddenly full and reached for her drink, clasping the glass tightly as she sipped. How many glasses was that? "So that's why you're not scared of him? What if he takes the shot and doesn't care who it's got to go through to hit you?"

"Because that prick will always hesitate, Mallory," Negan replied casually. "You do it once, it'll keep happening again and again; he hesitated and made a dumb choice and now I know that he will always hesitate when it comes to me."

But Mallory had stepped so intentionally in front of that man's line of sight, keeping Negan out of harm as much as she could without trying to alert him. It was her God-given right to pull that trigger on Negan, and no sniper was going to take that away from her. "What would you have done if I hadn't stepped in front of you?" she asked, trying to sound like she was concerned for his judgement.

"If he wants to kill me, he will, not much I can do about that," Negan shrugged, brushing off her alarm though Mallory had a strange feeling he was withholding information from her. "Besides," he chuckled darkly again, shaking her from her thoughts. "If Rick shoots you instead, he better make fucking sure he kills me too or else I will rip his world apart."

The smell of burning wax filled her nose as the candles burned. The flicking light in Negan's eyes made them look like they were on fire too; his face was contorted by the light until he looked like the Devil himself. She was scared for the sniper on the roof – Mal would have gone through herself if she was that guy. He'd never get another shot like that now.

"What the Hell really happened to you?" she muttered after a moment of silence, taken aback at the virulence she'd seen in him. "And none of this bullcrap about going insane; I know you're not insane. You never gave this much of a shit about my safety, or anyone's, before so what's happened?"

He flashed her a bitter smile, hollow around those fire eyes. "Everything happened, Mallory. Lucille died and everyone died. I killed half of them, for fuck's sake, and I'm sure you did too. Shit like that changes a man, better or worse. You know, I never really fucking forgot about you, sweet peach." The rarer nickname made her stomach clench. "Maybe what we did have back then was just sex, but fuck me, you were one of the only friends I had. Whole fucking lot of who I could count on ran away when Lucille got sick. You and her were all I had."

Her eyes prickled and she looked away, not needing or wanting to dredge up that time of her life just when she was meant to be pretending to soften; it just made her angrier at herself. "Negan, don't-"

"You and me… we were friends, Mallory. I forgot what that was like until I saw you on your knees in front of me again, snapping, pleading for mercy because of some limp dick motherfucker – I got a little jealous about that, if I'm being entirely honest. You and me, we're not over yet. I'm all you've got left when he betrays you. So, if anyone hurts you – really fucking hurts you – I am not sure what kind of man I'll turn into but I tell you, it ain't gonna be a nice one. Sniper-Rick's never gonna see me coming."

It was there in his voice – a pride in his violent honesty. They were away from his Saviours, from his enemies and his almost-friends. Beyond the bullshit, Negan was still an asshole but he was an honest one. She still hated him, hated what she'd turned into because of him, but he hadn't ever lied to her like other men, other people, had. Mallory looked away from him them, almost feeling the tiny thread of shame at doubting his honesty regarding her. She constantly had to remind herself that he was a monster now and was a monster then; no love had ever been or remained still. Their relationship was almost irredeemable.

"Losing people does that, turns you to stone," she whispered in kind, forcing the honest words out because Negan would spot lies on her like she was covered in lesions. "People die too much, it's screwed up. I got them killed. I made some bad choices in the heat of the moment too but other people took the hit. It didn't seem fair."

"Because it's not fair," Negan replied as if it were obvious, draining another glass of wine. "Nothing about this is fair."

Mal shook her head. "But those were my consequences to take, nobody else's. When Peter found me, I was on my own and his family, his people, they took me in. His sister hated my fucking guts, more than I ever hated you. She pushed and pushed and pushed me with every choice I made." Mallory tipped the last of her wine down her neck, savouring the cleansing burn. "I just snapped. It was too many times and I… I killed her and…" she trailed off, her jaw and body stiffening as she remembered all her bad decisions, her failures towards everyone in her group barrelling down at her.

"So, what, you think you made a bad choice in killing someone you were meant to be protecting?" he asked quietly, pressing her just enough for her to break.

"No," Mallory replied almost casually, locking her gaze with his. "The bad choice was not doing it sooner – I hesitated and she got everyone around me killed."

Negan just smiled slowly through the fire in his eyes.

* * *

 _The crash of broken glass woke Mallory, the clock blaring 02.24 at her as she rolled over to look at the thing on her nightstand. She snapped up, turning on her bedside light and expected to see someone standing over her with a knife, ready to plunge it into her chest and rip her heart out. Nothing. A second later and sounds of rustling and footsteps echoed outside her apartment, thick and heavy and very fucking familiar with a soft grumble through the thin wood._

 _He knocked three times, to his credit – given that she hadn't seen him in over a week. She wrenched open the door, standing there wearing nothing but a vest and some sleeper shorts, a contrast to the man in front of her – even with his biker gear on, she'd recognise him anywhere._

" _What the fuck-" Mal started, the man pushing past her to get inside her apartment. "Negan, why are you barging in here at 2am?" her voice was raw and croaky, red hair matted at the back. Somehow, though, he looked worse as he stepped into the light from her kitchen, pulling off his helmet – his eyes were sunk back into the sockets with at least a three-day beard growth on his face. "What's wrong?"_

" _Not fucking here to talk right now, Mallory," he grumbled, his voice sounding worse than hers. "Just… need you." Negan stripped off his leather jacket, depositing the helmet on her couch like he lived there. "Just – fuck – can you maybe throw me this one fucking bone and not ask?"_

 _Rubbing her eyes wearily, thinking maybe this was a weird sex dream, Mallory just looked at him incredulously. "No, I'm not doing anything until you tell me what's going on with you, you are freaking the shit out of me right now. Why are you here at 2 in the fucking morning?"_

 _Through her confusion and sleepiness, Mal didn't miss the grimace across his face as he took off his thick gloves, the knuckles on his right hand scraped red raw and peppered with something that looked suspiciously like wall paint. He peeled away the gloves and dumped them on her couch next to his helmet and jacket, scrubbing a hand through his hair._

" _It's just been a fucking shit-show of a day, Mallory…" Negan rumbled. "You want me to go, I'll go, but-"_

" _What did you do to your hand?" she asked, taking a few steps closer to pull his knuckles into view. "Have you been punching a goddamn wall?"_

 _He was a few inches from her face, her skin prickling up as he looked at her with those desperate, dark eyes. His injured hand broke free of her grip and almost tentatively cupped her face, pushing back her wild hair. "I'm sorry," he lamented, looking like he was straining himself from something. "I don't mean to freak you out or scare the shit out of you either. I just… I fucking need you tonight, Mallory, need…" Negan pled for her, pressing forward another inch until she could hear his heart beating between the air, smell the tinge of something malty on his breath. He sounded broken. "Please."_

 _Whatever made her nod her head was gone from her thoughts in an instant. He pressed her backwards onto a bare space of wall and kissed the breath from her body, his rough hands tearing at her vest and shorts until they were just tatters of soft fabric on the floor; she was almost bare in front of him in an instant. Her head spun out of control when his teeth and lips sealed possessively to her neck instead, sucking and biting her flesh until she had to smack his cheek for him to stop when it got too much, too painful and sensitive. Mallory groaned when he lifted her from the floor, her thighs clamping around his hips just for balance. Part of her was terrified and yet a thrill went through her core when he groaned her name as if it were his dying word. She would never forget that sound._

 _Her lithe fingers gripped a handful of his hair and wrenched him away from her neck, looking at the wildness in his eyes as something she never got to see – raw need, lust, desire to bury himself into her body and own it. Mallory trusted him but a voice in her head was so close to saying the safe word, just from the way he was looking at her. It felt like a punishment, like a test of how far he could push her. Instead of giving up, she yanked him back in for another kiss, lips bruising, teeth scraping against the tender flesh. Blood rushed around her body as he groped at her breast with one hand, pushing his tongue down her throat abruptly._

" _Negan," she cried out when he pinched roughly at her nipple, frustrated and overwhelmed all at once. Mal groaned when his rough jeans pressed into her wet cunt, teasing and scratching through her cotton underwear. "Don't be a fucking assho…"_

 _He swallowed her cries of protest with another punishing kiss, grunting in desire as he ripped the cotton in two with one hand, her hip reddening and rubbing raw at the motion. Two thick fingers tested her and probed, rubbing at her clit menacingly, Mal bucking into his hand as he did so. Negan brought her to an edge quick and rough, building her like a wave, only to back away before she crashed. Mal swore._

" _Fuck," he groaned, rushing to get his jeans unzipped, even more ragged than he sounded before. She wanted him inside her, to make her come before she changed her mind. "Fucking fuck, Mallory." Effortlessly, his palm reached down and hitched one of her legs up higher, already sinking his thick cock into her body, struggling to get all of himself inside her at the tight angle. His eyes never strayed from where they were connected. "Jesus Christ…" Negan bit his lip._

 _Mallory dug her nails into his forearm, biting her bruised lip until the edge of pain abated into simply feeling fuller than full, stretched and on the edge of bliss. "Negan, Negan, please, oh God…"_

 _His eyes snapped back up to her face, the fire and anger and passion back in an instant. "You want me, don't you?" he groaned, pulling out just barely enough to slam back into her cunt to the hilt. Her body rippled deliciously, clenching tight as he bottomed out. "Fuck, been needing you all fucking day. Sweetest pussy in the world…"_

 _Head spinning, she couldn't even form much of a thought before he started deep thrusts into her. She grabbed at him helplessly as he fucked her, her body shifting up and down the wall as he did. "What happen-"_

 _Her voice was cut off as he clamped a sweaty palm over her mouth, whining softly as he just fucked her viciously hard, seeking her heat. "Shut up," he snapped, almost daring her to talk out of turn again. "Just stop."_

 _The palm over her mouth drifted away, Mal keeping it shut herself and just concentrating on what was building up inside her. His hips rammed into her relentlessly, shaking her whole body from the core, body jerking, skin sweating and sticky. Mallory screamed and came hard around him as he rubbed indelicately at her clit again, her back arching as he fucked her roughly. Sweat beaded over his brow, coming inside her aching cunt with a groan, hips stuttering. They heaved for breath together, Negan backing away from her after a moment, looking dazed when he zipped his jeans back up like nothing had happened._

 _She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to say. Mallory rubbed a hand over her face, struggling with the urge to cover herself back up again, almost ashamed at what she'd let him do to her, even though he'd done so much more before then. Her thigh was bruising already from his hold – she'd not even noticed the force of his grip._

 _Negan looked at her for a moment before going to the couch and grabbing his shit, his whole body changing. Panic rose in her body, an anger and gut-wrenching pain stabbing at her to twist the knife in._

" _What are you doing now?" Mal questioned frantically, getting her brain back into forming coherent thought through her panic and fear. "Don't you dare do this to me, Negan."_

" _I gotta go," he replied gruffly, picking up the helmet and avoiding her gaze like the plague._

 _Angry, she grabbed the fucking thing from his loose grip. "No. You're half fucking drunk, aren't you? I am not just some warm body for you to slide your dick into, okay?" she was still heaving for breath. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, you fucking asshole. I'm saying I'm worried about you and you want to run away? You don't have to talk if you don't want to, fine. But you better goddamn treat me with some respect or you never walk through my fucking door again."_

 _He licked his lips and something inside him changed again, coming from whatever haze he was in. Mallory could see the shift with her own eyes, the way his shoulders gave out, how his breathing mellowed and the tired but salacious smile was back on his weary face. She had missed it. "I love it when you boss me around. Honestly, Princess, it's my favourite thing about you. That and your tits."_

 _Mallory had to stop herself from laughing in relief, tossing the helmet on the couch now that she was sure he was back to the Negan she knew and not some maniac in leather who just wanted to fuck her and leave. Mal strode more confidently across the room and grabbed a robe from the bottom of her bed, slipping it on – God bless studio apartments and the lack of steps needed to fetch things._

" _Coffee?" she asked curtly._

" _Read my mind," he said with a softness, following her into the kitchen like a puppy._

 _A million aches and pains started to settle into her body from her legs, her arms and shoulders, her cunt – he'd been almost too rough, almost too uncaring for her but Mallory didn't feel like an unwilling participant in the slightest. Still, she stretched out her aching back and ignored the stickiness between her thighs._

" _So, you're not gonna talk to me?" she asked as she set the coffee machine, realising it was going to be getting on for 3am soon. "Just a quick fuck, cup of joe and see you later Princess?"_

 _Negan groaned himself, leaning back against her cabinets as she made the coffee. "I'm an asshole, I know. Maybe I shouldn't have come here but it's… fuck, I need to get another drink in me."_

" _Last thing you need is more alcohol," she replied, barely containing her grimace. "What the fuck were you thinking, riding that bike when you're drunk."_

 _His laughter behind her was choking and she could feel his eyes burning a hole on her back. "Not drunk, that's the fucking problem here. Don't guess you can Irish up the coffee?"_

 _Mal snorted and let the machine bubble, crossing her arms underneath her. "I'm not giving you more fucking whiskey and I'm not letting you ride away while you're too drunk to not get yourself killed. Unless you wanna be roadkill."_

" _Well you're a barrel of laughs," he muttered bitterly. Mallory turned to look at him and he swept his eyes over her front, his gaze softening when it landed on her neck. "Jesus, I really did a number on you."_

 _The coffee pot beeped at her and she poured him a cup – minus whiskey – before shoving it at him. "Get that down your neck so I can talk to sober Negan. He's a lot less of an asshole."_

 _Negan downed half the cup, grimacing and shuddering as he did so. "I don't set out to be an asshole. Most people think I'm always a mean son of a bitch even when I'm completely sober. I got no idea why you disagree with them but you're a fucking saint for it."_

 _Mal filled a glass with water for herself, watching him carefully as she sipped. "Sober Negan I can handle. Drunk Negan's a whole other ball game. He's pretty wild. Too wild for me."_

 _He snorted in laughter, taking another sip. "You took it like a champ, Mallory, don't sell yourself short. I feel like a fucking asshole for doing that just now, though. I'd beat a guy half to death if he touched you like I did."_

 _Drinking her water to shake that possessive streak from her mind, she turned off the coffee pot so it wouldn't burn by morning. Talking to him wasn't working but she could speak his language. "You can always come make it up to me. If you're not gonna talk, we can put that mouth to better use."_

 _A raised eyebrow in her direction was all she needed as confirmation that it worked. Negan drank the last of the coffee in his mug and slung it on the side, following Mallory as she led him to her bed. "You're gonna be the death of me, Mal."_

" _Probably," she muttered, pulling his rumpled white t-shirt over his head swiftly. "I promise it'll be a nice death though."_

 _Negan beamed at her, his eyes sparkling as the coffee started to kick back in and took away the rough edge of alcohol. She leaned up and kissed him tenderly, smiling into it as he let her lead, let her dictate his hands and his hips. His fingers skirted around the suck-mark on her neck, thumb scraping the edge of it. Negan grimaced when she winced. "I'm sorry, Mallory."_

 _Pulling his hand back, she shook her head and pulled him in closer to her body. "Don't be sorry. Make it better," she commanded, letting him pull her robe half open._

 _He nodded softly, jaw set in determination when she laid back on her unmade bed, sinking into the mattress and losing herself. His breath skirted her collar when he leaned over to kiss her again, seeking a forgiveness that she didn't need to give. Both knew that he'd crossed a line back there and had to make it up to her in the only way he could._

 _Mallory sighed softly as he kissed down the centre of her body, slipping the robe just enough to taste her dewy skin. His tenderness and hesitancy to go any lower without her explicit go-ahead surprised her but he peered up at her from her naval all the same with that questioning gaze. Mal set her bare foot on his shoulder and pushed his torso down, spreading her legs enough for him to see his own handiwork from before._

 _Flushed and sensitive, her body shied away from direct touch. Instead, Negan kissed the marks his hand had made on her inner thigh before, rubbing out the aches she felt with his lips. How he knew exactly where she hurt she had no idea, but the thought fell from her mind when he kissed her skin like that, her eyes set on his raptured face. The slight drag of his tongue across her felt like a thousand sparks hitting all at once. God, she loved him – Mallory wouldn't say it but she could damn well let herself sink into that feeling, bathe in it and feel cleansed. He could show her what it was supposed to feel like to love a broken man even when he ripped her apart and kissed the remnants of her soul back together._

" _So sweet," he groaned, breathing harder across her skin. "Fuck, I never should have started this."_

 _Mallory was about to ask him what he meant when he sunk his tongue into her without warning, spreading her thighs apart as he dove into her. She cried out when he scraped the very tip of his teeth across her clit, her body loving and hating it at once._

 _Fingers slid into his hair and forced him to her cunt, Negan lapping up any trace of himself from her body he could get at. Mal's eyes widened as he groaned with her in unison._

" _Oh shit, shit, shit," Mal said, gripping his messy hair with her iron vice of a fist, arching as he ate her out._

 _Panting, he pulled up from her and licked those wet, pink lips, his smile turning into a smirk when he gazed at her. "Sweet peaches still. Nothing changes…"_

 _Mallory planted her foot back on his shoulder and pushed him down again wordlessly, a depth of need in her to come on the son of a bitch's face like she owned him. Mal did own this part of him; he had sought her out and sunk into her for comfort and it was a fucking thrill, even when she was scared for him. He made her feel again._

" _Make me come," she gasped as he sucked on her clit, bucking into his mouth. "So close, please, please, make me come."_

 _Negan doubled down in response to her command and she was crashing over the edge harder than before, his lips and tongue lapping as she soaked his face in wetness. Mallory's foot slipped back and he gripped her hips to keep her secured to his mouth._

" _Holy shit," he groaned, moving to lean back. She was blissed out and sunk back into her bed, waiting for him to climb on top of her. "You are fucking exquisite," he said with mirth._

 _Blushing, she missed the tone of his chirping cell phone until he produced it from his back pocket, both of their faces falling in unison as he read whatever was on the screen. "What's up?" she asked, once again lying naked, devoid of his full attention. "Negan?"_

 _Everything hung in the air on a silk thread. His shoulders bristled again as he licked the taste of her from his lips guiltily. If Mal was a betting woman, that chirping was sure to be from Lucille. Nothing made him stop like his wife did._

" _I shouldn't be here," he grouched but didn't move this time, staring at his phone. "I'm a fucking asshole, ain't I?"_

 _Pulling her robe back around her body, she pushed herself up from her bed with an unbelievable urge to smack the phone from his hands. "You'll only be a fucking asshole if you screw me like that and walk out again without a damn explanation," she said calmly, her voice dry and croaky. "You wanna do that, fine. You wanna leave, fine, I can't stop you. But I hope you don't, all the same."_

 _His eyes burned into her again, shaking his head simply. "You don't want to know, Mallory."_

" _Try me, butt munch," she said with an exasperated smile on her face. "Don't wuss out on me now."_

 _Negan set the phone in his back pocket. "Fine. You can feel like an asshole same as I do then," he took a breath and sat back on his haunches, half naked. "Lucille's in the hospital. S'where I been for the past three days, sleeping by her bedside in some rotten as shit chair, hoping to fuck that our insurance is gonna cover this bullshit. She's too sick this time, Princess, I don't know what to fucking do, I'm useless as shit."_

 _Glass shattered around her – she had forgotten about how sick his wife was, what they were going through. He was right; she felt like an asshole now too. "Why's Lucille in the hospital?"_

" _Infection, they think. Picked something up from someone, somewhere, and it just… she's not herself anymore. It's like they fucking ripped out my wife from her own body. Fuck cancer, pansy-ass fucker." He looked like he wanted to break something, fists flexing until the raw skin of his knuckles bled in beads._

 _It made sense now. The mania, the beat-up hands, the strain and fear and anguish. "If you've been at the hospital for three days, why are you here now?" Mal asked tentatively, moving to kneel on the bed next to him, wrenched apart by guilt and shame and empathy and still giving a damn about how he was doing._

" _Her folks kicked me out, Princess, they always hated my guts and she stood by me but she ain't really there no more. I made a fucking mess of it now, though, they don't want me near her when I'm like this. Can't fucking blame them, can you? I'd kick my ass out too."_

 _Her brain ticked over and she wondered what to do. Was it even right to comfort him? She was quiet for the longest moment before she laid back down on the bed, patting the empty side next to her. He looked broken as he obeyed her command after a second's hesitation, that tension in his shoulders never abating even when he scrubbed a hand over his face, kicking off his boots._

" _You didn't go home?" she muttered softly, letting Negan pull his arm around her torso almost unconsciously tightly, his head on her like a child's._

" _Too many photos," he huffed into her shoulder. "Like staring at what you used to have. Not worth the fuckin paper they're printed on." Her fingers drifted up and down his bare arm tenderly as he relaxed. "I shouldn't have come here."_

 _The sadness spiked in her heart too, seeing him like this in her bed. "You don't have to pretend here, you know," she tried, tempering her voice so it calmed him down. He looked exhausted and she realised he couldn't have slept in days. "Sleep off the whiskey, shower in the morning and go back to swallow your pride. Lucille needs you to not be an asshole, just this once. Just sleep it off, Negan, s'all you got to do."_

 _His eyes locked with hers just one more time before he grumbled lowly in agreement. She kept stroking his arm until was out cold, regardless of the light still beating down from the bedside lamp. She envied that of him, how he was so exhausted that everything shut down while her mind raced. He breathed steadily and fell asleep so easily under her, looking older and younger all at once._

 _When he started snoring, Mal chuckled and used her toes to grab the comforter, draping them with it, Negan not even rustling as he slept. For hours, she watched him quietly, her own mind between awake and asleep with his. Hating seeing him in such pain, she hoped beyond hope that it was going to be over soon. Whatever happened after his wife died, whether he would want to be with her or not, she just wanted that peace to come over him too. Even when his phone chirped again from beneath the covers, Mallory made no move to tell Negan he had a message again. Mallory told herself in earnest that Negan needed sleep before he could get back and made it right with his in-laws, kissed his wife and prayed that it got better before it got worse again. She told herself that over and over._

 _For one night, just for two insane hours of her life, Negan had needed her more than she had needed him. Her fingers stroked his arm and she smiled._

* * *

"No dessert?" Mallory asked as she slid her napkin over her empty plate, trying to avert attention from her own recent past and back onto their pseudo-date. "I was hoping for more of that berry crisp from the other day."

Negan relented slightly and allowed her to move on the topic, standing up by the side of the table and holding a hand to her. "Not tonight, no, I wasn't sure you'd turn up but now... I hope you and me can get along a little nicer after this, maybe even try for a second date?"

She stared at his hand, the wrist splint in place like he was a real baseball player. Mallory's eyes switched to look up at him as she slid her hand into his, her body tense as he bent and kissed her knuckles tenderly.

"Thought you didn't do anything on a first date?" she mumbled, her skin tingling into goose bumps when she felt his breath skate across her.

Chuckling, he yanked her to her feet and gripped her wrist in his hand loosely. Her heart hammered in her chest, thundering away when he stepped closer to her, bending and leaning forward until she could smell the wine on him. "I don't. But if I had to make exceptions to that rule, Princess, you'd be the first girl on my dance card."

Mallory couldn't back away if she wanted to, her pale eyes sinking into his dark ones. The room felt claustrophobic and tight, too empty and dangerous. "Good thing this isn't really a date, then."

His eyes scanned her face in the dim light and seemed to be satisfied with whatever he was looking for. "I should walk you home though. These hallways and walkways aren't always so safe, especially when you're not armed."

"Well whose fault is that?" she muttered, her lips curving into a genuine smile.

Negan barked in laughter, those eyes dancing again. "See, there you are, coming for my balls again," he rambled, making no move to let her get away or have any space. "Goddamn it, I have fucking missed that mouth of yours."

"Now you're just being crass," she said, sliding her hand so their fingers intertwined instead, her stomach whirling around at the heat emanating from his body.

"Crass is my middle name," Negan smirked down at her again, seemingly not caring that she'd taken his hand like old times. "You are gonna come to dinner again, aren't you Mallory?" he asked, though they both knew it wasn't a question.

His spare hand reached up and slid into her hair, thumb scraping over the pulse point in her neck. She shivered on the spot, the alcohol turning her mind into mush, memories crashing and desire building. Mal had to have had three glasses with dinner, maybe more.

"If you're nice to me, I can be nice to you," she mumbled, trying to slide away from him and finding his hand on her skin almost too much to bare. "Quid pro quo."

Negan smirked and nodded once before pulling the hand from her hair, that spike of alcohol-fuelled desire abating as he let go. "Good," he said, his voice rougher. "Let's get you home before you do something you'll regret tomorrow."

Mallory nodded in agreement, taking a steadier breath as she gathered herself back from her tipsy stupor. He led her by the hand back to her room, keeping a courteous distance between them before he dismissed the guard by her door and slipped the key to her room into her own tingling palm, an open invitation. Negan hadn't said a word as he walked away, whistling to himself.

She stared at the damn key all night.


	13. Chapter 13

When the world first fell, Mallory made music out of pain. In those crashing storms, the thumps of her own heartbeat gained rapid ground, her footsteps thundered on dried earth, and bursting breaths pulsed in her chest to make song. The rhythms fuelled her, and she poured herself into composing symphonies. Each Biter she cut down with her Bowie knife was a crescendo to her masterpiece.

Real music found her again, though, nudged from the blood and guts and resurrected by the last person on earth she thought possible. At Negan's piano, the real songs melted out of her fingers and into the keys like they'd never left her heart. She loved every damn note the more she played. The roaring crescendos weren't made from thudding heartbeats and cracks of skulls but from real, godforsaken _music_. She could – and did – play whatever the fuck she wanted. Nobody stopped her; nobody wanted to or dared to try.

Music made her human again and she brought it out in everyone. More than one person dissolved into grief-stricken tears when she sat and played in The Sanctuary. She played out whole marriages, first dances, first kisses, last kisses; songs rooted in memories that didn't belong to her. Playing on feelings she hadn't felt. Mal got better at seeing them in people, she got better at smiling, better at tears. People broke before her just from the sound of music while she got stronger and stronger with every passing note. It was an odd sort of hold she had over the powerful and powerless alike. One morning she had tried out Edelweiss and swore blind that Arat behind her had flinched visibly: Mallory counted that as the best victory she'd had there. Music seemed to move even the hardest and coldest of souls, if she found the right notes to play.

All too soon every day, her time would run out and she would blend into the crowd again, as powerless as anyone else. Mallory would walk back to her room under the watchful guard of some guy or another even as she pushed and pushed for more time to play, asking each guard she was given for just one more song. They never caved. From feeling panic and fear at her piano, Mal now counted the hours one by one until she got to play for the crowd, her fingers hitting keys made of thin air when they shook in the need for more.

After the third morning of playing, Mallory found that a stack of new books – trashy romance novels, an anthology of poetry and a book on astronomy – had been placed surreptitiously on her desk by the only person who could leave them there; no note in sight because she had no need of one. Two more mornings later, there was a white washcloth and fresh soaps and shampoos, all smelling of citrus and sweet peas. Negan was tossing roses at her after each performance, hoping she'd take the bait. Mal left them where they lie.

On the seventh morning, Simon had been watching over her from the edge of the room for a few minutes before he jogged over to interrupt her playing. Mallory hadn't seen Negan in a day or two and even then, it was a sparse glimpse between his meetings: she considered Simon a poorer substitute for his boss, even though he'd picked up the swagger and the piercing stare alongside his own disconcerting weirdness.

"Hey, kid, scooch up. You're gonna play me something," he called out to her in the middle of an upbeat song, people glancing over towards them as the music stopped abruptly like she was in some strange game of musical statues. Simon didn't seem to notice her annoyance, or care about it as he sat down on the bench beside her anyway, pushing her ass over as he did so. Her skin bristled at the invasion and she slid as far as she could.

"Like what?" she asked curtly, watching people around them turn away.

He rifled through the reams of sheet music balanced on the stand in front of her, most of them written by her own hand from her memory. "You got any Queen? Man, I was a fucking prog-rocker back in the day but I guess you're too young to remember them in their prime, aren't you? In diapers when Freddie was pounding out the hits in the 80's."

"Everyone knows Queen, you'd have to live under a rock not to," she sassed back, trying not to laugh at the image of Simon singing Queen at the top of his lungs. He probably had a full head of hair back then too. "You wanna sing something? I don't have a microphone, so you'll have to project for the people in the back. Emote from the diaphragm so it'll travel further." Mal smiled outwardly this time, keeping her attention on her own hands as she started to play a bar or two of _Under Pressure_.

Simon smiled in return; the corners of his eyes creased up but there was a coldness lying underneath she didn't want to see. "I like you better when you're being sassy, Mallory," he muttered, leaning sideways into her bubble. "I kinda get the attraction now."

"I bet you do," she muttered mostly to herself. Their toing-and-froing in the Hilltop wasn't far from her mind – he had pressed a gun to her back and she had taunted him in return, her ego heightening around the man like it didn't around Negan. There was no hiding with her ex-lover, but with Simon she could fake her ego and wear it pridefully, talking back to him like she thought she was immortal. Mal's skin still prickled at Simon's proximity to her, aware of the weapons he had on his person. She didn't think he'd have the mind to kill her – especially not in front of witnesses who'd give him up in a heartbeat – but the threat hung there nonetheless, like lightning waiting to crack the sky.

Simon was more unpredictable than anyone she was around since he had the strength to wrap a wiry hand around her throat and strangle the life out of her. Mal didn't think anyone would actively stop him. Instead of thinking any further about a hand at her throat, Mallory kept her focus on remembering how to play the song, striking the notes that little bit harder than necessary.

"That's the fucking sweet shit right there," he groaned after a moment, tapping the top of the piano along with the rhythm. "Queen and Bowie. One giant blow job to entire fucking music industry."

"Did Negan send you, then?" she asked almost rhetorically, ignoring his attempt to put her off-kilter. "Put his right-hand man on babysitting duty instead of by his side."

"Oh no, no, no, no. Honey, Negan's out of town on business, so to speak," he grinned suddenly and gave a breathy laugh. "So, you're all mine today," Simon poked at her nose. "And mine tomorrow. And probably the next day, too. He's not gonna be around until he's done cleaning up other people's shit. So really, I guess you're my fucking pianist now. Look how that turned out."

Her stomach faltered as she tried to keep the song going, the idea of Negan being gone suddenly looking like a bad thing. "And where's he headed to now? Knock over some old folks' home, steal a couple Zimmer frames for you and the other old bastards?"

Simon tutted and elbowed her in the side lightly, jostling her fingers. "Now, I may not be the brightest little lightbulb in the box, but I am still fairly goddamn sure it ain't none of your business where he is. Don't worry, I'll treat you nice and sweet; comb your hair, sing you to sleep. You're his favourite little doll, after all, he won't want a hair out of place when he gets back and I don't want a shit storm of angry Negan coming my way now, do I?"

"Which begs the question," Mal snapped. "Why are you here with me? You must have better shit to do. Nobody's attacking me out here and I doubt you've got the balls to."

"I just couldn't turn down a brilliant opportunity to get to know the new favourite better. All his girls just love a bit of company, long as they mind their fucking manners around them. Don't want you getting lonely on me, Mallory. Just ain't gentlemanly." Simon beamed widely, and almost genuinely, at her again. She didn't understand the sincerity. "Wanna play twenty questions?"

Mallory kept her rhythm going, trying to keep from going faster as her head turned in five different directions. "What could you possibly want to know about me that you haven't already heard from your boyfriend?"

His hand flexed and twitched on the side of the glossed piano, his veins and callouses a stark contrast to the shiny surface. He was just as rough as she remembered from all their encounters – he was covered in scars and pock-marks, shoulders wider and meatier too; he'd obviously worked his ass off and then some judging by the muscle on his form. Negan was so different – lean and slim, more like a runner than a boxer. She knew Simon's whack packed a hard punch.

Simon seemed genuinely interested as he leaned closer into her space, fixating his curious gaze on her forehead. "Does that still hurt you?" he asked, gesturing up to the pink scar on her head. "I got chewed out something awful for it, you know. Lost my temper when you ripped that chunk out of my leg."

"Yeah," she muttered, glancing at him for a second. "It hurts still. Next question?"

He looked pleased as punch. "Doesn't it just wind you up that ain't nobody wanna talk to you in the morning times, except me? From what I hear, only the kids'll go near you."

There was a stabbing pain in her chest for a fleeting moment before it disappeared. "No. I don't care about that."

"Ooh baby, you're a terrible liar!" Simon chuckled again and she fantasised about jabbing a pencil into his eye until it popped. "But hey, so am I."

"My turn," Mal shot back, wearing her ego like armour. "Do you hate me because I'm a woman? Because I caught you with a knife? Or is it because I'm in between you and Negan?"

Simon snapped and grabbed the back of her neck tightly though it wasn't enough to leave a bruise or a mark. She froze. "That's really rude to interrupt my game. Really, really, rude. But I'm gonna let it go because I am a nice guy. I'm reasonable, I'm amenable. Whatever stick you got lodged up your ass, honey, I suggest you pull it out quick." He let go of her and she let out a breath. "And I don't hate you. You have to care about a person to hate them…" his fingers threaded her hair back away from her face the same way Negan did, though it felt so much more different. "Hate and love aren't opposite."

"We'll have to agree to disagree on that one," she said, heart hammering in her chest as she went back to start the song again. Mal felt better when she had something to distract her from Simon's presence next to her, his volatility worsening. "Ooh I got another question," he said, dropping his voice to a whisper. "How many times did he fuck you up against a piano? Did you cross it off your bucket list?"

Mal's eyes roared into angry fire. "Zero. And no," she lied. "It wasn't on there."

"Do you miss being free?" he asked. "Do you miss killing Biters, acting like a leader? From what I heard, you had a mightily shitty job out there but I know you've got some skills in your back pocket."

"Yeah, I really miss the sweat and filth and grabbing for whatever scraps we could get. Jesus," she shook her head, the anger making her say stupid things. "Just because I got you in the leg doesn't mean I'm the best in the world," Mal laughed curtly. "Men and their egos, I swear to God. Why don't you all just walk around with your dicks out so you can measure them up against one another and do it that way?"

He didn't say a word. He just stared, his eyes creasing as he broke into a wide, beaming smile. "You do miss it," he said, clapping her over the shoulder. Her rhythm faltered again as he jarred her, pissing her off even further. "I fucking knew it; you miss being out there, it's why you're so uptight. Man, I really thought it was because you haven't screwed anyone yet but dang… I was wrong as shit. You know, baby, I can put a good word in for you with the boss man, get you back out in the field. Who knows, maybe you'll actually be fucking useful for once."

"You're just as batshit crazy as he is," Mallory replied, at the end of her tether. People around them had gone back to their conversations, keeping their distance away from Simon and Mallory and their games. "I am never, ever going out there with you and your Scooby Squad," she said, snatching her sheet music out of his hands and gathering the papers before jumping up from the piano bench. Her temper flared, hand itching to punch this asshole in the face.

"Come on! Negan seems to think that the sun shines out of your ass, Mallory," Simon called after her, jogging to catch up as she stormed off. "Says that you're better than any I got waiting in the wings to come up. Maybe he's wrong," he taunted. "Maybe you don't have the guts to do it anymore. Look at you, sitting at that fucking toy he gave you, getting fat around the edges. Yeah I see that tight ass wiggle a little bit, baby. I just love watching you walk away."

Mallory clenched her fists as Simon stepped in front of her path, seeing that he wasn't going to drop the damn bone from his jaws. "You're not goading me into getting out into a line of friendly fire, Simon," she muttered sweetly, walking around him. "I wasn't born yesterday, no matter what you think."

Simon followed her as she walked away from him, glaring at their spectators. "All I ever fucking hear is Mallory this and Mallory that; it's a fucking broken record. I just want to see you put your money where your pretty little mouth is, sweetheart, see if you're any better use as something other than a radio."

When he slid in front of her to block the side door, Mal took a step back, an annoyed look on her face. "Look, I'll put this in language you can understand," she muttered softly, her confidence heightening again. "I not listening to your bullshit. You're scared to death of me and I don't know if that's because of what Negan told you or because I one-upped you or Hell, if you feel that threatened by a skinny girl with a smart mouth, but I'm not buying what you're selling. You want me dead? Come kill me, see how it works out for you. Don't try make it look like an accident out in the field so you don't have that shit storm of angry Negan coming at you with Lucille. Did I catch your real game?"

Simon folded wiry, steel arms in front of his chest and held her there, unrelenting in his fortitude. "I know that you miss the rush, Mallory. We both know that's not bullshit and if half of what he's told me is true, you really would be a God-sent fucking asset out there. I can get you suited and booted in no time, work off some of that anger you got bubbling under there."

As she chewed on her bottom lip, Mal felt an itch under her neck she couldn't reach to scratch. "You'd never trust me and I'd never trust you, let alone anyone else in your boy band. They all see me the way you do." She caught his eye, her own gaze hardening as much as she could make it. "But, uh, just so you know, if it was a fair fight between you and me… I'd win."

"Got no doubt there, kid," Simon replied with something indiscernible in his voice. "But I don't like fighting fair. It's boring as shit and you're better than that," he trailed off and stepped aside only imperceptibly, a weird smile on his face.

"Guess it'll have to be an unfair one then…" Mallory muttered before she deliberately pushed past him, feeling the heat of his eyes firmly trained on her back as she walked away.

* * *

It started like all the other days.

Mallory would wake up, play her songs, keep her eye out for the guards and laugh with the kids, teach them a few notes and leave again. It was routine, it was normal, repeated over and over again. She found it easy to forget Simon, about Peter and it was even easier to forget about the threats over her head. She had even let Negan trail willingly from her mind in favour of a simple life.

Until she found the man himself three days later, sitting on her bed with his head hung low, blood and dirt smeared and spattered in a painting across his t-shirt. Her shoulders sagged and she opened her mouth to speak, pissed that her space had been invaded yet again. There hadn't been sight of him in days and he came back to her now, covered in filth?

One of Negan's hands shot up at Mallory as soon as she took a breath to speak. His eyes were still glued to the floor, unmoving and unbending. "Just don't, for once. Shut the fucking door and don't say a word before you do." Alarm bells rang in her head at the sound of his voice, cracked and hoarse, wavering under a weight. He didn't look injured from where she could see and the blood was sticky on his skin, not fresh and weeping.

A silence passed between them as Mal shut the door behind her in reluctant compliance, rubbing the back of her neck as exhaustion set in. "I didn't know you were back," she murmured, standing near the door as if waiting for an invitation to come forwards. "Simon must not have-"

"Simon doesn't know," Negan grumbled low in his chest, interrupting her again. "I slipped in a couple hours ago. Nobody else knows and it's gonna fucking stay that way."

It was there. She could see it as she took a few steps towards him. His hand gripped the edge of the bed too tightly, knuckles almost white behind the purple tones. His eyes looked hollow when he finally decided to look up at her, as cold and as dead as a tree lying in a forest, deep and empty. "Negan…" she started, cataloguing everything she noticed as she came carefully closer. The alarm bells didn't stop – Mal had only seen him like this once before.

"Don't, just… fucking don't, Mallory." His dead eyes finally snapped back into fire at her again, reminding her vividly of all the times he had felt hollow and angry at the world for Lucille's cancer. This wasn't the Negan they all knew downstairs; the one that they feared was constructed of mania and personality quirks with a barbed-wire bat. This was the Negan that Mal was scared shitless of – a raw, pulsating nerve that turned her into someone who needed to control it, to comfort him. Mal never could manage it.

She was quiet for the longest time, trying not to let her trepidation show in front of him, even though he was so obviously wrapped up in his own mind. God only knew what the fuck had happened out there to turn him back into this wreck of a man, the one she'd only glimpsed at the lowest of his ebbs.

"Why are you sitting in here?" she asked softly and slowly. No answer came and Mallory sighed, trying to find her voice again, standing resolutely away from him. "Is that your blood?"

Negan looked away again, a scowl on his face as he saw the pile of reading materials sitting on her desk. "I really should have fucking stipulated that Caroline get you books you'd actually like and not that trashy Kathleen Cookson shit," he groused, gripping her sheets hard enough to rip the seams. "Fucking people, Mallory, fuck them. Fuck the whole fucking lot of them!" he raged, leaping up and stalking towards her suddenly, spitting fire until he stopped in the middle of the room. His shoulders swaggered like a caged animal, feet trekking across the width of the room. "I ought to burn this place, all of 'em, burn them to the fucking ground. Go to war…"

"Why?" she asked, not trusting her own voice to remain steady. "What happened? Simon told me you were out on business."

Chuckling dryly, he seemed to be trying to contain his anger away from her body; she could see how he was holding himself back like he used to, keeping all of it inside tight under pressure. The one slip had only ever been when he had come in and fucked her roughly up against a wall – neither of them knew how to funnel furious anger without sex or violence. Mal was terrified.

"Simon's got a giant fucking mouth on him lately," Negan said, though she thought it was mostly to himself. He groaned again and tore himself further away from her, his fists clenching and unclenching, a pulsating grip that struggled to contain his anger. "Alexandria's a dead town," he mumbled reluctantly, eyes darting to the floor and back to her. "What fucking more do I have to do before that asshole gets that I'm in fucking charge around here?!"

Mallory winced as he slammed his fist into a wall, broken bits of plaster and blood flaking off along with the skin of his knuckles. Negan's shoulders hunched over and the anger seemed to dissipate slowly into stoicism as he shook out the pain from his hand. Her breath quickened.

"Look," Mal said, trying to think of something to keep him calmer, keep him from yelling and breaking shit and raging around. "Just sit the fuck back down, you're trailing blood all over my clean floor."

"My floor, you mean," he shot back but complied, slumping back down to sit on her bed. The floor was indeed sticky with bloody, muddy boot prints, creating maps of his steps.

"Whatever…" Mallory snapped back, dashing into her wash room to wet a cloth. She gripped the edge of the porcelain and breathed deeply, feeling her hand shake and her nerves steel once more. Her blood thrummed in its veins and refused to stop the adrenaline flowing through her. Negan was terrifying when he was like this because he was terrified too; she had never known a man as brutal and raw as him. Mal had only seen it on a rare occasion but still something thumped in her chest, egging on the danger. She could feel the grip on her body, how he would drive himself inside her as she tried to make him better. Her own skin prickled in danger and desire.

Mallory wrung out her new washcloth quickly and peered into the bedroom, lingering at the doorway slightly. Negan looked up at her, catching the washcloth when she tossed it at him and holding it for a second. "Before you nag at me like you're my long dead mother," he muttered more calmly, wiping off the sticky blood flecks with a rough palm. "I didn't kill anyone. I should have. Should have torn the whole place a-fucking-part. Rest assured, that will be the last fucking warning that prick's gonna get."

If that was a warning, she didn't want to see a real threat. "I'm sure it will," she murmured in reply, watching him clean himself. "You go alone?"

Negan caught her eyes and shook his head in denial. "About a week ago, I sent out a team of four or five, thinking they could handle it. Got word down from someone that Rick's motherfucking moron party were holding back on us, not keeping up their end. Can't fucking trust anyone with a job, Mallory, can't trust a goddamn soul. I had to go do it all on my own, yet again."

"And that Rick guy?" she asked, afraid of the answer given the state of Negan.

The washcloth glided down his arm and Negan grinned in sick victory. "I went down and I beat the living shit out of that ungrateful, motherfucking asswipe. Trust me, Mallory, he makes one more move to cheat me again and I'll burn that whole fucking town to the ground and piss on the embers. He's slaughtered my men, conned me out of my fucking property and now he's trying to whisper shit in my ear about you… I can't let that fucking crap slide, Princess, I am not an asshole that he's free to fuck."

"He threatened me?" Mal asked half in shock, taking steps towards him as her own ire spiked up. "He doesn't even know me, why would he threaten me?"

Negan barked in laughter, staring up at her like she was an idiot. "I'm sorry, did you hit your head again? I watched you stand directly in front of his fucking line of sight back at the Hilltop. He knows what you did – Hell, they all know what you did. Your reputation's starting to precede you. Rick don't know shit about who you are to me but he saw what happened at Hilltop and he is mightily pissed off about it. He wants to come after us, after you, I'd better fucking me dead or he'll wish I was. That wasn't a fucking threat, it was a promise, and now he's put his dick on the table, trying to measure up to me by threatening my sweet girl," his voice cracked with his vehemence. "I'll waste them all, every single fucking person there."

"What did he say?" Mallory pressed, her own voice morphing into a growling menace.

Negan looked away, down at his knuckles as he cleaned them. "Back when I first laid eyes on that asshole, I killed his friends and I did what I had to do to get him in fucking line. Even then, the bastard looked me right in the eye as cold as fucking ice and said I was dead already. Now he's coming and leaning into my ear again and saying, 's _he's dead too_ ," Negan growled. "And I fucking snapped."

Her mind blanked. Everything burned, her hands shook and clenched like his had before in want of a weapon. The blood rushing to her ears heated her skin, heart pounding in her stomach. "You… reckless fucking _moron_ ," Mallory stuttered, enraged and shocked. "You have no idea. You're inciting this asshole to go to war, put all these people here at fucking risk because he said three goddamn words? _That_ was your last straw? Are you insane?! You beat him half to death, it's not gonna do shit to make him scared if he wasn't already, it's not gonna do anything except make people want to take you on. Big man with the giant balls, swinging that fucking bat around like you're untouchable… I can't believe you'd be such a fucking idiot. Rick conned you, Negan – he conned you good. Now he knows _where_ to hit you: square in my chest."

"I can't show goddamn weakness, Mallory," Negan argued back almost as vehemently. "You give this asshole a fucking inch and he takes a mile!" He looked up at her with clearer eyes, piercing and eerily calm. "And pardon my goddamn French but where do you get off telling me how to keep people safe?"

Mallory blanched in her anger, her eyes widening at his accusation as she stalked towards him, blazing and red-cheeked. "Excuse me?"

"You heard. You wouldn't know how to make tough decisions if I gave you a fucking manual! You got everybody in your group killed because you couldn't take a hard line. That was your fucking mistake, it's not going to be mine! Rick won't fucking hesitate, he's not some gutless wonder like you are-"

Mal smacked him square in the cheek, her whole body shaking as she dealt the blow with all she had, Negan's head snapping backwards. "You're a son of a fucking bitch!" she cried out, her voice quaking and broken.

Negan shook his jaw out, the washcloth discarded on the sheets, soaking through the cotton. Mal turned to get away from him, arrested in her motions as his rough hand wrapped easily around her left forearm. She was suddenly wrenched towards him with his vice-like grip.

"Stop," he growled, eyes darkening as she stood above him, struggling to pull away. It was taking all she had not to hit him again. "Just fucking stop it, Mallory."

"Stop what?" she growled, staring him down with stabbing anger. "Stop caring that you're going to get yourself in deep shit and that everyone here's gonna suffer because of it? Stop being fucking angry that you think so little of me still, after everything?!"

Negan's nostrils flared as he held her gaze with his, his face still a little dirty and flecked with blood around the edges he'd missed. She could see a shadow of a bruise around one of his eyes, something that she couldn't have seen before he'd been clean. Rick had taken a swing at him, too; a mistake not many people made and yet he said he hadn't killed anyone there.

Then he licked his bottom lip and Mallory's anger stuttered, her heart pounding in her ears. This was too close, too raw, too real, too much. She could feel the heat from where she stood, drawing her in to those dark and stormy eyes as his grip on her changed.

"Stop pretending that you still hate me. I'm not buying it, Princess, not for a second," Negan muttered slowly, his spare hand twitching. His eyes darted down the length of her body, her thighs rubbing together imperceptibly as she stumbled in her anger at him. Everything came flooding back and drowned her – all the sex, all the laughter, all the pain and happiness and love choking her hatred and fear back down until the man in front of her was just the Negan she had loved; brutal, honest, fierce and now he was willing to do anything to protect her.

"Negan…" Mal couldn't move anywhere, her legs frozen in place as he splayed his palm across her hip, nudging the edge of her shirt up over her stomach an inch or so. His thumbnail caught the edge of one of her puckered scars, the skin pink and soft and almost tender under his whisper of a touch.

Tentatively, he let go of her wrist, his body almost willing her to back away and stop it. "I would let cities of people fucking fall and die in agony before I let him hurt you, Mallory," his voice rumbled below her. She could have so easily pushed back, got out of his grip. He'd never force her to move a direction she didn't want to move.

"I know," Mallory replied through gritted teeth, willing her skin not to break into goose bumps or her voice to not sound like it used to. She didn't move.

His other palm mimicked its partner and held her other hip, nudging the edge of her shirt up and away from her jeans until a stripe of bare, vulnerable flesh was on view. Fingers threaded through his hair, Mal tugging at the strands between her fingers until it must have burned him. Breath ghosted across the bare skin of her stomach and he licked his lips, watching her closely through hooded lids. She slid further forwards to stand between his splayed thighs.

"I miss you," he admitted, voice low. "Please."

Thin lips kissed above her bellybutton, daring to taste her soft clean skin. Mallory melted and shifted her thighs, judging her options as he got closer to the limit.

"I can't do this again," she muttered, arresting his movements.

"Don't tell me you don't miss me too," he chuckled darkly, getting cockier by the second. "I can smell it on you, you know. I can see it."

He leant back in for another kiss at her stomach and Mallory backed away from his grip, shoving her shirt back down. Her heart thudded in her chest at what she'd nearly done, falling back under the spell of desire and memory.

"No, not yet," she said after a moment to get herself back together. "If you ever knew or cared anything about me, Negan, you know why I can't just go jumping back into your bed. It was a mistake the first time and I'm not going to repeat it again."

Tension rifled through both of them but he nodded eventually, letting out a frustrated huff from his nose. "You really fucking know how to work a man up into a mess, Princess, I'll give you that. I was a fucking idiot to let you get away."

Mal laughed curtly at that and picked up the washcloth, sitting back down beside him on the bed. "You threw me away, Negan. I didn't leave. I'm still picking myself back up again."

"Ah fuck," he muttered. "I have made a lot of fucking mistakes in my time, but that one might be right up there on top of the Christmas tree."

"I can watch my own back," she said softly, looking at him as he calmed himself back down. "Even your Gal Friday said he wants me on his team."

Negan chuckled as he sat upright, staring down at the floor again. "Probably said it so you'd go out there, get yourself killed or something. He thinks you're a distraction."

"He's probably got a point there, though," Mal replied, wiping at the dirt and blood smeared across the back of his neck. "He can try and take me out if he wants, it's not gonna work."

"What, Simon or Rick?" Negan asked, turning his head as she cleaned him off.

"Both," she murmured, tucking her hair back before he could reach out and make her weaken again. "Let 'em try. Maybe I won't win but I'll put up one Hell of a fight."

"That little prick's gonna get what's coming to him," Negan replied, his tone even as the anger dissipated. "Should've killed him today."

"Why didn't you?" she asked, genuinely curious. There was a hesitancy when it came to Negan and his inaction against this great enemy she had yet to meet. "You could've done it a hundred ways, a hundred times. You would've killed anyone else who talked back to you like that, without threatening me too."

Negan avoided her eyes and instead brushed off the dirt from his shirt. "Maybe you should think about Simon's offer," he said eventually. "Even if it was a ploy. We might need anyone we can get our hands on to defend the people here who can't fucking defend themselves." He turned and looked at her as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it, instead depositing the new – now bloodied and dirty – washcloth back into her hands before he stood up and strode towards the door. "You should come visit me some time when you're ready, Princess. I think it'd do us both some good."

It wasn't until he was gone that Mallory let out the breath she'd been holding, shuddering to think how close she'd come to jumping back full throttle without thinking. She laid back on the bed, still feeling the ghost of his smirk on her stomach and the tingle that lingered up her spine.

* * *

 _Contrary to everything he had promised her in the beginning, their relationship wasn't easy. Or, at the very least, it wasn't easy on her._

 _When she looked back on the games he had played, on the things he'd said and done, Mallory couldn't – beyond reasonable doubt – claim that he had duped her into falling in love with him. She thought women who fucked around with older men only did it for either money or sex, not because they thought it'd end up in anything like love. She wasn't much different in the beginning, she supposed._

 _Negan was the definition of charm and charisma, a magnet who drew everything and everyone into his insanity so that you were either everything to him or nothing to him. He would look at her and every doubt she had about herself would melt away into nothingness with that lascivious smile. God, he drove her crazy, like injecting fire into her soul. Being away from him in the beginning had been frustrating but now, months in, it was impossible._

 _It wasn't fair on anyone, she supposed. Not Lucille, not Negan, not herself or the lives that were going to come screeching to a halt when Lucille would eventually die. It was wrong, so very fucking wrong, to want a dying woman to die even quicker. Mallory felt her jealousy fester in her stomach more in the two weeks Lucille was stuck in the hospital than she had in her whole life. He was gone before she was awake that first night; in the next fourteen days, she had come home every night to find him waiting on her couch. How he had managed to get a key to her apartment, she didn't know. But he would do what he did before and would always do; avoid her eyes, bury his face in her neck and make her come around him until he could sleep like the dead._

 _Maybe it was the only way he could sleep anymore. He hadn't crashed at hers for three nights running and she figured that something had happened. Those three nights on her own were nothing short of painful, wondering and waiting for news. It wasn't like she could go down and ask with the woman's whole family there. Negan, of course, wouldn't forgive her for it and would cut Mallory out of his life like she was the cancer rotting Lucille away. Her own mother had warned her about dating a man who was un-dateable. She should have listened, Mal thought._

 _She finished work one night, exhausted and dressed up to the nines after playing a private concert to find her front door barely open. Negan sat on her couch, his feet up on the coffee table and a beer in his hand, staring up at the ceiling like he'd never missed a day._

" _She's coming home tomorrow," he said without missing a beat._

 _Mallory dumped her keys and purse on her little side table, kicking the door closed until it snapped properly. "Close the front door next time. If there's a next time," she muttered, kicking off her shoes. "Any old man could get in."_

" _One did," Negan said, tilting his head back down, still not looking at her. "You're late tonight."_

" _Had a thing," she replied, padding wearily towards him on the couch. "Look, if you came here for a fuck and a bed to crash on again, you can just go find a fucking motel and a hooker or something. It's late and I can't do this now."_

 _Swigging his beer, Negan snapped his eyes towards her and stared, blank-faced as he clocked her clothes. "Fuck're you wearing that for?" he demanded._

" _Work," Mal muttered curtly, annoyed at the empty beer bottles on her coffee table._

" _Work?" he said sceptically. "You wear a fucking short-ass, skin tight goddamn dress for… work? What are you, a fucking escort?"_

 _She eyed her own dress – it wasn't anywhere near skin tight, and was skimming her knees in length, the royal blue fabric of the skirt fading into the same colour lace on the top half. It was just the nicest thing she owned and was always worn for her fanciest of clients._

" _I do when it's for the goddamn Mayor," she said. "I played a fundraiser tonight. Made a thousand dollars and got three propositions from potential sugar daddies. I was having a good night until you turned up and left your muddy boots on my carpet."_

 _Negan stared up at her blankly. "So, you got all dressed up to play a piano?" he asked after a moment, Mallory still standing over him. "Or were you already lining up the next sucker…"_

 _Rolling her eyes, she picked his boots up off the floor and shoved them into his stomach. "Go home, Negan, shit, I don't care. Go anywhere but here."_

 _He didn't move and just stared at her, shoving the boots back down. "She's coming home whether you want her to or not, Mallory. I can't change it, I don't want to. She's…" he stopped when his voice creaked a little, and she could see the redness around his eyes. "You'd like her if you ever met her."_

 _Her resolve crumbling again, as it always did, Mal reached up and unclipped her hair from her head, letting the red locks fall over her shoulders. She had wanted to cut her hair before but he'd asked her not to; she wasn't used to the weight. "Does Lucille make you happy?" she asked, watching as his eyes traversed her body from top to toe. "Does she fuck you like I can fuck you?"_

" _She used to," he mumbled, reaching his hand out to grab at her leg._

 _Mal smacked it back from her thigh and shot him a glare. "We're going to have to call this the last time. I can't go through this shit again."_

 _A smile piqued at his eyes as she pulled the skirt of her dress up and peeled off her white underwear, stepping out of them. "It's not gonna be the last time, Mallory," he said, leaning back as she climbed to straddle his lap. "Never will."_

" _Stop talking," she muttered, cupping his face in her hand and leaning it back slowly into the light. "Just let me have this one. I know I'm yours. You know I'm yours." Mallory leant in and kissed him slowly, pressing her whole body to his._

 _Negan rubbed gently at her back, his fingers running over the lace and finding her curves, not intent to get her naked or to run the show but content in holding her and letting her go at the pace she wanted. Mallory gave a contented sigh as she leant back from his lips and knew he was right: whatever she would do in the future that didn't involve him, it would always be in the back of her mind that she belonged to Negan. She could settle, find a husband and have a kid, buy a home. It didn't matter – she was his._

" _Mallory-" he started, sliding her skirt up her legs again._

" _Shh," she whispered, arresting his hand and instead taking over the job for herself. "It's all mine tonight."_

 _He gave her a little growl of frustration in the back of his throat but nodded in acquiescence, lifting his hips as she wrenched open his dark jeans to palm his cock. "Fuck…"_

 _Mallory kissed the moan from his lips and pulled him out of his jeans, already wet enough to take him. She could get used to being in charge if the way his eyes were blown and dark were any evidence to go by. They burned at the buttons on the front of her dress but he stuck to her rule and made no move to get them open._

" _You want to get your mouth on me?" she asked huskily, feeling the slickness grow between her thighs. "Suck my tits as I ride you?"_

" _Fuck yes," he groaned in bliss as she wrapped her hand back around his cock in reward. "Want to taste that sweet flesh, Princess. Take it off for me," he begged. "Please."_

 _Smirking, Mallory popped each button slow enough to drive him insane, taking each button right down to her naval and spreading open the sides of her dress to show him the bare breasts waiting for him to taste. She threaded her fingers through his hair and brought his mouth to her, his lips and teeth automatically sucking and lathing on her skin while his hands wrapped around her hips._

 _She cried out in pleasure when he sucked on the underside of her breast enough to sting and messily shoved up her own skirts to get him inside her. Mal craved his touch, his lips, his breath because it gave her everything she wanted – power, excitement, that adrenaline running through her like fuel. Lifting her, she slid both of them back and sunk down on him slowly, eeking out the pleasure as he stretched her wet cunt._

" _Fuck," she gasped as Negan grunted into her chest, obviously restraining himself from driving up. "Fuck, fuck, yes…"_

" _Ride me," he groaned and looked slightly up, craning to see her. "My gorgeous little redhead."_

 _Mallory gripped one hand on the back of the couch and rode him slowly, up and down until her thighs burned. Negan seemed happy to watch her impale herself on his cock again and again, his hands twitching and fingers digging into her thighs._

" _Negan," she gasped out when he gave up and thrust up into her, meeting her as she rode him. His twitching fingers inched to her cunt and rubbed delicately at her swollen clit, bursting her into life._

 _Skin and muscle burning, she rode him harder, driving his cock deep into her like it really was the last time. His thumb worked a rhythm quick on her clit and mouth lathed at any skin he could reach when she leant forward to make herself come. "Fucking beautiful, Princess," Negan growled like an animal, thrusting up yet again. "Fucking soak me."_

 _Mal screamed and came all at once, a rush of blood soaring around her and setting herself alight with pleasure. Negan buried himself deep inside her and stuttered a few more times before he came inside her with a shout, clawing at her thigh._

 _Panting, she twisted back to look at him as her haze fell away, watching his brain click into place again. "Stay tonight," she commanded quietly._

 _All he had to do was nod and he was hers again for a few more hours._

* * *

Her room was dark and empty, cold and warm at the same time. Mallory hadn't been able to get Negan out of her mind all day, not with the way he had kissed her skin and gripped her hips. Still, she had backed away and was proud of that fact even if it didn't fix her damaged walls or clean the dirt and blood from her carpet. The quiet was always too quiet at the end of the world. Some nights she used to hum songs or tried to remember poems she had learned in school, even a Bible verse or two from her youth and her father. They were patches on a gaping wound now she was here, her mind whirring around even in the middle of the night.

Peter used to snore a lot, she remembered that. Jackson and Brit would talk for an hour or two, maybe, before they would fool around and only then fall asleep. Hunter made light conversation when it was her watch, not wanting Mal to be alone, before he would grab his hip flask and say goodnight. She missed the sound of other people; she missed their clothes, their empty water bottles, their smiles.

It was useless to mourn anymore. She'd never do anything but. No, all Mallory had for company was the deep sound of her own breathing and her heartbeat in her ear. It didn't make for good music.

The click and creak of her bedroom door startled her and she sat up slightly in bed, just tilting her head up even though she knew there would only be one person to look in on her in the middle of the night, her body curled half in and half out of her sheets. Negan stepped towards her wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung sweat pants and clean skin.

He clocked her eyes and chuckled softly, like he was expecting her to be awake. Neither said anything as she sighed and laid back down in her bed, too tired to fight another fight. She didn't know what this was, what he wanted, but she was too tired to care. He must have called off any guard who was stationed outside her door, if he didn't want them eavesdropping.

Mallory and Negan just watched one another as he pulled up a crumpled sheet from the bottom of the bed and laid it across her in an oddly gentle gesture. Her eyes watered at the sudden, random, act of kindness when he just sat down next to her bed, back against the wall. And did nothing.

He didn't move or speak. Her eyes grew heavy as Negan simply watched her, sometimes shifting his position. It could have been 30 minutes, it could have been three hours, she didn't know. The last thing she remembered before falling deep asleep was Negan reaching up and brushing her hair from the side of her face, fingers lingering on the shell of her ear.

Her eyes sliding shut, she felt nothing but the press of thin lips on her forehead and the whisper of his smile on her skin.


	14. Chapter 14

_It was a selfish thing she was doing, Mallory knew that. She wanted to ignore that poke in her head that told her to confess to Lucille, the voice that said the whole truth would clean her soul. After everything came out about how much time Negan really spent in her bed, how much he cared about her, how he looked out for her, Mal would be free of the gnawing pain she felt. Every night when trying to sleep, she had arguments with the mysterious version of Lucille that existed inside her head. Sometimes she pictured the same stunning young girl in the photos at his house, and sometimes she'd see a frail woman at the end of her life. No matter what the face or the argument was like, Mal would always be left with a burning guilt in her stomach and lose her nerve. The imaginary arguments never ended well._

 _Mallory and Negan hadn't seen hide nor hair of each other in a week and she was lost, completely adrift between staying by his side until the rocky end when he crashed or walking away with her dignity somewhat intact. She had to make a choice soon._

 _Lucille knew there was another woman, another bed he slept in, another body he held. She couldn't know how much time he was spending kissing guilt away and leaving nothing but happiness in its wake. And how much his Princess loved it. Just to see her one time, just to meet the woman Negan would die for, the woman who she'd always fail to measure up to would make it easier to walk away from them both._

 _Mal parked her shaky little junker of a car down the block from Negan's house, the guilt fresh in her stomach as she tried to summon up the courage to walk up and knock on the door. Just to say hello, come up with some pretence for knocking. All Mallory needed was a moment to see if she was brave enough to rip this dying woman's world apart. Mal could imagine how it would end; Negan would never forgive her for it, maybe even hate her for her selfishness. Her curiosity about Lucille was killing her slowly and carefully every day that Negan spent with his wife instead._

 _The sun beat down on the car and heated it until beads of sweat prickled on her forehead, Mal wiping them away with the back of her hand as she stared at their perfect white-picket fenced house. She could imagine the life they could have led together if it wasn't for the cancer – happy, honest, open, maybe even with kids around. The world was what it was, she guessed; cancer happened, she happened and it was already a future in ruins. Negan could never love her, even more so now if she ripped his wife to pieces on her deathbed. Lucille might have fought off the infection but she was still terminal and Mallory hurting her now just to make herself feel better was just the worst idea in the world. It was wrong on every level._

 _Mal bit her lip as a tear welled up into her eye at the futility of it all. How many times did she have to swallow her own love for him and bury it down deep? Negan was devoted to his wife and that was the end of it. Confessing to an affair Lucille already half-knew about wasn't going to break them up - it would just be the worst thing she'd ever done to another person._

 _Still though. Just to rip off that band-aid, clear her conscience and confess would give Mallory enough courage to walk away from Negan. It was all she had to do: just tell the truth and she'd be free from it all – guilt, pain, love, pleasure, meaning._

" _Fuck it," she muttered to herself._

* * *

Mallory's life hadn't been much of anything.

After enjoying nearly ten years of being pretty much a total-fuck up in her father's eyes, she had turned a sharp corner, tried to do better and make him proud of her like he'd been when she was six years old with ribbons in her hair. Her teens had been spent in bars with bad friends, smoking shit nobody else would dare smoke, getting arrested for petty theft to make a buck. Every rebellion she'd made against her parents was a textbook example. Only now she was a little older, a little lonelier, did she want to make her life better than she'd made it.

Mal had got herself a steady job, a crappy little apartment and a clunker of a car but they belonged to her and she had tried her fucking hardest to do it right, to be his little girl again. That was until Negan came along and threw her life back off the rails, turning everything back around again. Her father died still disappointed in her. There was an ache in her gut, fuelled by regrets, that was never completely gone.

Even as she finished getting dressed, it was there – that little seed of something she had buried deep inside her long ago. Mallory sat on the end of her bed, her calloused hands rubbing along her thighs idly, mind wandering to their last conversation and the hurried words before it all came to the worst possible end. Her Dad had taught her how to handle a gun, how to punch so she didn't hurt herself, how to tie lures and hunt deer. Mal chuckled to herself at the notion that her Dad had saved her life in unknowingly preparing her for what was to come: she'd survived at the start because of what he taught her. Even if he was disappointed in her for her shit choices, he'd be proud that she'd survived this long.

Her pale blue eyes – same shade as her own father's – flickered up towards the door before she reached almost automatically for the sonogram photo buried inside her mattress. Mal kept it away as much as she could for fear of being caught even if she was sure that there weren't any cameras on her. Negan would have exploded in a white-hot fit of rage if he had found out about her secret.

It was the one thing that was still hers, that picture. The black and white waves, the crease down the middle and ruffled edges – it was hers and hers alone to keep. Her car, her apartment, her job… all of them were long gone. Mallory simply stared at the splotchy picture, a thing barely weeks into forming, only just alive and yet it had been hers. She never even knew whether it had been a boy or a girl. Mallory was more than the sum of the things that had happened to her – miscarriage included – but it still helped to think that she'd gotten close to doing some good in her life.

It didn't matter, in the end.

Whatever she'd done in the past, she could now be grateful that their kid had never been born because it hadn't stood a hope in Hell's chance of surviving. People weren't people now; they were colossal wrecks, decaying before they died in the dirt trying to crawl to freedom. Whoever thought having a baby at the end of the world was a good idea had to be insane – she was grateful there wasn't that burden of a death on her shoulders.

"Knock, knock sunshine!" a booming voice suddenly announced from outside her room, accompanied by knuckles rapping on the door before it started to creak open creepily.

"Shit…" Mal hissed and panicked, stuffing the picture under the mattress in haste to hide it as her peace was disturbed.

Simon poked his head around the corner, grinning coldly. "Hey, I said knock, knock, you could at least pretend to invite me in."

"What do you want, Simon?" she demanded, jumping to her feet and praying that he'd not seen the sonogram. "I got a half hour still before I have to get downstairs."

He waltzed in like he owned the place, thumbs tucked through the belt loops of his jeans. "Oh, I really don't give a crap about that. I'm here with some happy news from the big man."

Mallory looked at him sceptically before she bent down to get her boots on quickly. "Negan finally found you a good hairpiece?" she muttered bitterly.

"Sassy this morning, I like it," Simon grinned even wider, which annoyed her no end. "No, I am here to deliver an eviction notice; he wants you out of this room as soon as we can get you a place in the general population. That's an exact quote, by the way."

Mal's mind went blank for a fleeting second before she could process what he'd said, her body stiffening as she realised what it meant. "Negan wants me out?"

"Bet your ass he does. So, I'll get you a box, get you packing whatever shit you're taking down. It's like Christmas, kid, Santa's bringing you a present!" He clapped his hands and rubbed them together joyously, looking like the cat who got the cream. "And you're gonna have to do an actual fucking job instead of sitting on your fat ass all day doing nothing! Don't you just love the holidays?"

Mallory's stomach churned; she had gotten used to being up in the rafters, in her own space. She'd gotten closer to Negan, pushing her way back into his good books and now it was gonna be in fucking tatters if he tossed her down the stairs like a bag full of trash. Fucking fuck.

"This is bullshit, I haven't seen Negan in days. No fucking way he told you that and you waited this long," she reasoned, panicking and picking at straws, desperate to find a reason to stay close. "Make him come tell me in fucking person, then I'll believe it."

Simon snorted derisively. "Make him? He's his own man, with his own mind. And I'm doing jack shit favours for you. I thought you'd be happy, all that crying about being up here alone." She glanced away for a moment in shame and he just smiled again. "Yeah, I heard about that, baby. Aren't you the littlest bit happy to be hidden away downstairs again, huh? You turned down all the offers he gave you for an easy life. Time to pay your goddamn way around here."

Losing proximity to Negan just wasn't a fucking option. She had a chance that she wasn't about to just give up without a fight. She didn't believe for a fucking second that Negan would make a decision like this and have Simon of all people deliver the news. Negan wasn't a coward, not then and not now.

"I'm not going anywhere until he grows some balls and tells me himself," she demanded, holding her head a little higher. "Me and Peter aren't going to-"

"Peter?" Simon interrupted, looking confused at her. "That pussy's been out of medical and back downstairs for a week. Hasn't stopped bitching about working in the kitchen either. Not said one word to anyone about you, though. Can't blame the asshole. I mean, you are the reason I call him Stumpy now, it's pretty understandable that he doesn't give a shit anymore..."

As he talked and talked, her fingers curled into a fist. Her Dad had taught her to keep her thumb on the outside so it didn't get broken, keep the wrist straight to get the most power, use the shoulder for the hardest force. Smashing Simon's nose in could be a fucking cathartic release but it'd get her nowhere fast. Instead, Mal forced herself to calm down, just wanting to get him the Hell away from her as quick as possible.

"I'll work. I'll do whatever job he wants. But I'm not moving until he comes and tells me himself," she said, waltzing past Simon to yank the door wide open. "Now get the fuck out of my room."

* * *

The next few days themselves dragged out; every noise outside her window made her jump to her feet, checking for signs of Negan's return. She kept looking through every door, asked the gossips about rumours and inadvertently started a few herself, but nobody knew anything. If they did, they weren't telling her. The prospect of being left with Simon made her chances of surviving the Sanctuary less and less as each day passed – the idea of Negan never coming back slowly filling her with sinking dread instead of the confidence she usually portrayed. It wasn't until she was starting to consider the worst that Negan decided to make a grand re-entrance into his own kingdom.

Whatever had happened out on the road, Negan didn't look the same after he came back as he had that night in her room. It was like someone had turned a switch on him and the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. His first act was to bound into the commissary in great striding steps with no sign of Lucille in his hands, rushing towards Mallory with the warmest grin on his face just so he could grab her arm and tear her away in the middle of a song. Even his boots skidded on the linoleum in his hurry to get to her. Mal tried to hide her relief; his eyes lit up at seeing her again. Whether that relief and happiness was reflected her own eyes, she didn't know.

The notes squealed out of sequence as Negan grabbed her, hauling her up to her feet while she protested. "Hey, I was playing that!" Mal griped, Negan dragging her from the piano, slipping his grip from his arm to her hand like it had never let go.

"You're always fucking playing, come the fuck on!" he laughed almost manically, tugging her out of the building by her hand. "It took a goddamn week but we got it all, every last fucking scrap out there! You gotta see this shit, Princess."

Her loose hair whipped around her face and she brushed it back, trying to ignore the people watching them with bemused, judgemental faces. "You got what?" she asked as they made it outside into the bright daylight, right near the front gates…. and then she saw his haul. "Holy shit," she muttered in stilted awe.

"I know," Negan smirked, not letting go of her hand as she stood there in a stupor, her neck craned up a little. "Fucking beautiful, right? Making my dick hard just looking at all this stuff."

Stuff was an understatement. Parked in front of them were three huge trucks, backs all opened out to show their insides crammed full of everything. Every kind of thing she could think they'd ever need. Mallory could see at least six crates of apples, bundles of scrap metal, stacks of both new and broken furniture, piles of clothes, a few mattresses and some just sealed boxes and coloured tubs. Piles upon piles of supplies, more than she could even technically see.

"Where the ever-loving fuck did you get all this?" Mal asked, dumbfounded. It had been fucking forever since she'd seen anywhere near as much stuff as he'd collected, somehow – each truck was already being carefully unloaded by a couple Saviours and a few normal people, the grunts working quickly to get everything safely inside before any rain could fall from the clouds tumbling around overhead. "How did you do this…" she trailed off, walking towards the middle truck to take a closer look.

Negan beamed pridefully behind her, his eyes flicking to watch his men carefully, lest someone drop something precious. "The old-fashioned way; scavenging, looting, hitting up some places a little further out of the way… scouts had been out for months trying to find good targets. This haul's been a long time coming, but it's enough now, it'll keep all of us here through the Fall and Winter, maybe even beyond. We scouted out a factory, cleared it out and got a motherlode of canned food, freeze dried stuff, pristine condition cos it was so overrun with Biters nobody else had the balls to go through it. Even found the old boss's secret booze stash in his desk," he winked at her gleefully. "It was a goldmine, Princess, a 24-carat fucking goldmine," he walked slowly up beside her as she took it all in. "And it's all ours now."

The wind whipped up between them as she took a step back, impressed and overawed. "I don't understand. You must have gone across state to get all this, hit everything. There's not enough fuel left in the world to do that."

"Oh, I have magic in my fingertips, remember?" Negan muttered, switching his gaze to her as the procession of loot went by. "I got you a little something-something too…"

She turned and raised her brow at him with suspicion, glancing at the people who were unloading. "I don't want a present, I've had enough fan mail lately. All those books and soap and stuff… they're more than I want."

Those dark eyes flickered into what she could distinguish as a pissed-off kind of hurt that only he was capable of. "Don't bite the hand that feeds you, Mallory, it's hardly a fucking engagement ring." A moment and a hand inside his jacket pocket later and there was a thin gold chain dangling from his fingers; he had found her a necklace with a musical note on the end, something very familiar to both of them.

Mal bit her lip. "How did you find that?" she muttered sharply, reaching out to grab his elbow and turning them both away from where people would see. "I'm not wearing that again."

"Why not?" he chuckled, pulling it from around his fingers nonchalantly. "You loved it when I gave you one just like it before. You wore it all the fucking time indoors as I seem to remember."

"And look where that one ended up," she shot back as he unclasped the two ends of the chain. Sighing, Mallory swept her hair up with a roll of her eyes and turned around on the spot for him. Maybe she could allow him this gesture since it was only a necklace: it meant nothing to her anymore. He wouldn't rattle her cage.

Negan's fingers looped the chain around her neck, his body pressing in a little close for comfort as he did so. Mal could feel the warmth of his breath on the nape of her neck, skin tingling at the familiarity. "Yeah, you threw it in the trash, I remember. Still, you wore it. I saw your eyes light up when I gave it to you the first time," his fingers slipped around the chain, making it settle around her neck delicately. Her heart thudded and she knew he could feel it through his fingertips, that soft little gasp slipping out of her mouth before she could stop it.

A beat later and Negan was gathering the chain at the nape of her neck, pulling it tight across her throat, tugging it backwards enough until the metal bit into her skin. It felt like a collar slicing into her skin. She stiffened.

"Negan…" Mallory said, flashing back to when he would do that with the first necklace. The act had always turned her legs to mush underneath her. There was something about his possession of her body, sometimes enough to leave marks on her skin, that made her skin prickle with heat.

Mal felt his chuckle rather than heard it, the necklace cutting into her neck deeper as he tugged again. "Just a little fun, Mallory. I wanted to hear that raspy little gasp again," he muttered into her ear.

"Stop it," she snapped quietly and felt the instant release from her neck as he let go. She turned and met his eyes, the unspoken memory floating between them. It had been a secret gesture then and it still felt wrong now, to be flaunting it in the open for people to see. Negan was taunting her, making her beg and reminding her how he made her feel still. "Don't," Mal warned, her tone clipped to a sharp point. "Don't do that ever again."

He held both hands up in mocking surrender, gaze flickering to the necklace at her collarbone. "Can't blame a guy for trying. I'd like to know what's got your panties in the bad kind of wad, Mallory."

Skinny fingers lifted to her throat to rub away the memory of a sting more than any actual pain. "Can you blame me?" she replied quickly and quietly. "You come into my room, kiss my forehead and fuck off to nowhere for a whole week? Then Simon's telling me you want me out of the room, down with the rest of them. You wanna talk about mixed signals, Negan, I think you're writing the fucking dictionary definition."

Barking laughter left his lips suddenly and he clapped a hand on Mal's shoulder, manoeuvring her whole body to walk forwards. "Fuck, and you believed him? I bet him a bottle of scotch you wouldn't fall for it. Fuckity fuck, Mallory, you just cost me a good night in!"

God. She was an idiot. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Of course I didn't believe that bullshit he was spouting," Mal shoved his hand away from her shoulder. "I didn't move jack shit out."

He was still laughing but slipped his whole arm over her shoulders instead, tugging her close. "I am so honoured you chose to stay up there with me, Princess. Maybe we should make it permanent? I'm sure I can get some plaster, fix the walls up, paint 'em, whole nine yards just for you. I had half a mind thinking you'd be out of there before Simon could finish up his spiel."

Mal chewed on the inside of her cheek, "Don't think I didn't consider it. It's just that people here don't like me because they don't know what I am. I'm not a wife, I don't really work, yet I have a room to myself."

"You want a job? Take one! I got a hundred jobs going free, Mallory, take any goddamn one you want," the fingers of the arm around her shoulder fleetingly trailed over her arm. "Hell, with all this gorgeous new shit I got in stock, take a position in the inventory. Jane's a good old gal, she'll get you set up in the system, making sure my shit doesn't get stolen! I'm on fucking fire today!" he laughed again and squeezed her shoulder. "It's settled. Tomorrow, you can start your brand-new job. I'll get someone to come grab you after your little concert and you can earn some fucking respect back from all your new friends."

"Inventory?" she replied, looking over at the people unloading from the trucks still.

Swiftly, Negan leant in close to her ear, whispering quietly. "And you can spend all day pining after me." He suddenly dropped his arm from around her and accosted a passing man carrying a crate of apples. Negan plucked a single ruby red fruit from the case before waving the guy onwards without much notice. "You're just about the only person in the inventory I trust not to just take shit without asking. Don't fuck up now, Mallory. I am not a nice man if I find out you're hiding something from me."

Without wasting a breath, Negan bit into the apple nonchalantly, licking the sweet juice from his thumb.

* * *

 _Eyes itching, Mallory's stomach rumbled as she unlocked the front door to her apartment. It was the only sound in the empty hallway – a click of a lock and the echo of her hunger. She'd skipped breakfast again and had only picked aimlessly at her leftover pizza the night before, so she was voraciously hungry next lunchtime. She was exhausted already, the stress of Negan and his baggage crashing down on her and turning a spigot to drain what she had in the tank._

 _He still hadn't contacted her, hadn't called or texted in a couple of long, long weeks. It wasn't unusual behaviour from Negan and not by any means out of his ordinary but it felt so much different to her this time. It felt final in a way that it hadn't before. Instead of spending her nights with him, Mallory had called her friends, had gone out with her mother to sew patches back on their relationship and slowly she began to remember what it had been like before Negan – an easy routine, the normalised life she had strived towards. She felt like any other girl trying to make sense of the world again. Mal wanted to throw herself back into it, the routine of a life made right. Maybe even think about going on a real date just to push past the roadblock in front of her that had forced her to back up. It would never be simple but she thought it might just work – a clean break._

 _She tugged off her jacket and rubbed the back of her neck to pull out the ache she felt rising. Something clattered. Metal on metal, around the corner in her kitchen. Acid panic started to rise from her gut to her chest and she turned to check the door; it hadn't been jimmied open and the windows looked fine to her. Oh God. She didn't have the energy for this._

" _Negan?" Mallory asked tentatively, chucking her keys in a bowl by the door. Her eyes widened as she saw the state of her kitchen. "Oh, fucking Hell, man, what the fuck is your problem?!"_

 _She didn't have to guess who the person inside the cabinet beneath her kitchen sink was. He was chest-deep so all she could see were his paint-flecked jeans and the flesh where his shirt was riding up; still, he was completely unmistakable._

" _I'm fixing that fucking leak, Princess, what the fuck does it look like I'm doing?" he called back from inside the cabinet, the sound of his voice a little hollow and sharp. "You been bitching about it for weeks without getting off your ass and doing something."_

" _So, you thought you'd just come here in the middle of the day and make a fucking mess everywhere?" she questioned, kicking off her shoes._

 _Negan swore as there was another scraping sound and a thump. "Got nothing else to do since I'm on sabbatical. I fixed everything in my own fucking house so I thought 'hey, Mallory's just a kid, bet she ain't got that faucet fixed up yet' and here I am. And I was right. Fucking door's rotting from the inside."_

 _Incensed at the balls on him, she walked around the counter to stand over his body. Negan was lying flat on the kitchen floor, head obscured and a mess of parts and paint and tools tossed all around him like he was working on a construction site._

 _Mal poked at his thigh with her foot insistently. "The fact that you're bored out your mind doesn't give you a right to just waltz in here and start fixing shit without asking!"_

" _Well fucking excuse me, I am just so fucking sorry, what an asshole I am," he muttered sarcastically, curling himself out from the cabinet. His dark hair was messy and flecked with the same paint from his jeans, cheeks flushed enough to notice. "I'm just doing something fucking nice for you, figured you'd be wanting that security deposit back for when you move to fucking Baltimore." Mallory saw the coldness of hurt flicker and die in his eyes as he looked up at her._

 _Her fiery anger doused, she curled her arms around her chest. "How'd you know about Baltimore?" she asked a little more quietly. "I only got the call a few days ago – you tap my phone too?"_

 _Negan groaned and clambered up from the floor, throwing some kind of wrench into an old toolbox on the counter. "Tap your phone? Jesus, Mallory, no, I didn't tap your phone. Bob called me yesterday, asked when I was getting back to work since the classroom next to mine was gonna be empty soon." He had his back to her as he started packing up his stuff, angrily throwing in all the clutter from her chipped counters. "Guess I should have seen it coming."_

" _You know what, I really don't want to talk about this bullshit with your selfish ass, so get your crap and get out of my apartment," she snapped, walking away from him. Her head thumped painfully, the apartment feeling too tight around them, trapping her inside._

" _No, no, nope, you don't do that to me!" he demanded, furiously stomping after her. "I gotta find out through our fucking boss that you quit?!"_

 _Mal stopped dead in the middle of her apartment, standing stiffly in the middle of the room. The walls weren't scuffed up anymore – instead the marks had been covered over, all freshly painted and clean like she hadn't lived in there at all._

 _Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Mallory turned and looked at him as he came up to her. "I can't keep doing this, you and me. I need a break away from-"_

" _From me?" he seethed in an instant, rounding on her. "You want a break from me."_

" _From everything!" Mallory clipped in trembling tones. "I want my goddamn life back, Negan. Spend your time with Lucille instead, she's the one who needs you."_

 _There was a slight tick in his jaw that she saw, forcing her to turn away. "And you don't anymore, that's what you're saying?"_

 _The dust covers crinkled as she ripped them off her couch, stuffing them into a crumpled ball in her fists. "Let's face some nice cold facts here; we are not a thing. We were barely casual and now it's in a coma, I'm pulling the plug…" her voice caught at the back of her throat._

 _His hand wrapped around her wrist, trying to get her to look at him. "Mallory-"_

" _You don't have a right to tell me what I can wear, where I can work, what I can do, who I can speak to!" she spat, turning and shoving the cover into his chest. "You're not my father, you're not my boss or my husband, Negan. I can make my own fucking rules too and this is one of them – you get out when I tell you to."_

 _Negan didn't take the sheet. He simply stood there with his hand around her arm as if he was clinging onto her for dear life, his fingers gripping like they always did. Their eyes met and she wanted so desperately to have him back to herself, those demands from his lips giving her life but Mal had to take a step in a different direction, make her own life for herself before it all blew up in her face. If there was one thing she could be sure of, it was that she'd never be a part of his life._

 _Both knew what he needed from her – control, comfort, a way to ignore the chaos going on around him. Negan had used her just like she'd used him to get a cheap thrill back into her bloodstream. But now he was just staring at her, jaw clenched and hand clasping onto her arm, not letting go._

" _I'm not leaving, not until you realise that this has never been your fault, Mallory," Negan eventually muttered, piercing her with a knowing look. "You're not the one cheating, I am. I know you're scared and you're hating yourself because of Lucille," she winced at his overly knowing tone. "But trust me here, I'm the only asshole to blame in this thing. You can do what you want, I'm the one with responsibility."_

 _Mallory couldn't believe his gall and twisted the sheet in her hands. "I'm your mistress, your dirty secret, that's all I am now. I'm not free any more than you are!" She laughed and sobbed at the same time, the tears suddenly pouring over her cheeks like rivers cutting down forests. She wiped them away and chucked the cover into a mound on the couch, turning away from his cutting gaze and his calloused hands. "I can't stop going over and over it in my head, how much of a shitty person I am for cheating with a dying woman's husband," she grimaced visibly. "How can any decent person do that? I nearly confessed everything to her, all of it. Even camped outside your house in my crappy car the other day like I was waiting on a Catholic priest. But then I thought she'd just hate me, it'd hurt her. I got no guts, Negan, and neither do you."_

 _Mal slumped down and sat on the back of her couch, not daring to look at him. She could feel his irritation like it was her own, a tension between them at her confession. Her conscience had invaded his world in the same way he always had invaded hers – everywhere she went, he was in the back of her head._

" _Lucille would've laughed, Mallory," he said plainly, sounding as exhausted as she felt. "She would have hurt you more than you could have hurt her, she'd laugh and ask for the details and you'd wonder what mind games she was playing on you." He snorted in laughter and Mal saw him run his fingers over his paint-spattered hair. "I get that you feel guilty. You don't think I don't fucking have it eating away at me too? Why'd you think I force myself away from this? It's not fucking easy but I do it for my wife. I love her like you can't even fucking begin to understand, I can't love you too."_

 _Biting her lip hard, Mal fought the uncontrollable anger and urge to rage and hate him, to throw him out of her life for good with his knife in her chest. "I never asked you to love me," she seethed through gritted teeth. "There's only so much of your controlling, manipulative bullshit I can take."_

 _He suddenly clamped both of his palms around her head, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "Nothing can control how you feel," the smallest smile barely graced his lips. "I can't stop coming here either – you're stubborn and naïve, you put up with my crap and call me out on it. You drive me fucking insane and taste like Heaven," he gripped the hair at the sides of her face harder with his fingers, almost rough. "I can't stop wanting you and I'm not going to, no matter how far away you run from it."_

" _You are ripping me apart," she barely whispered, gripping the edge of the couch with white fingertips. "I have to leave this behind."_

 _A hefty, angry sigh left his lips as he simply looked at her face, like he was memorising her pain. "If you want to go to Baltimore, I'm not going to stop you. You've got more of a future than I ever had, Mallory, don't want you wasting it." The smile gracing his lips turning sweeter and sadder, he let his hands drift back down to his sides. "Play for rich assholes, marry some lawyer to make your Daddy proud. I'll always be in your blood, Princess. You're mine now."_

 _Suddenly the whole place around her felt alien. Her apartment had been built as their secret, a world where the outside didn't matter and they could lose themselves in each other, forgetting about what they had to be. He could forget about Lucille, she could forget about her failures and disappointing her family with her past. Negan had painted over her – trying to fix the leaks, papering over cracks – but it only made her feel more wrong. Her walls were cracking and crumbling as the end came._

" _I need time to think," she muttered, looking around the place with a more measured view. "No more letting yourself in."_

" _Not gonna take as much time," he smiled distantly, the mirth not reaching his eyes. "I'll send you a bill for the repairs, Mal."_

 _He strode out without another word, leaving her to clean up the mess he'd left behind._

* * *

"Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," Mallory stuttered to herself, flipping page after page of inventory lists, sheets of paper flying everywhere. "Shitting fuck!" Her head throbbed and heart pounded in her chest, sick realisation setting in.

She threw the clipboard onto the table, the clattering turning a few heads of her co-workers. Three fucking days. That's all it had taken her to see that something was wrong, some giant fucking anomaly from the books that had gotten overlooked by the people now looking at her like she was crazy. Mal didn't know what to do. She had checked list after list, gone through piles of equipment, looked over everything she could think of. She had even asked around the others about whether it could have been an oversight but, in her gut, she knew what was going on. A knife had been checked back in but the store was one short – and it was a chef's knife.

People's lips moved but Mal couldn't hear what they were saying around her. The clipboard stared at her accusingly, mocking her. It was all her fault. There was only one person in the entire Sanctury working in the kitchens who had the balls to steal a knife so openly. Peter had to have taken it – nobody who had tangled with Negan would be as reckless, as stupid as to take something like that from under his nose, something everyone should know was missing. Had the purposefully ignored it until she came along?

"Honey, you doing okay?" Jane – a slim woman with bluntly cut, dark hair – asked her in passing, her arms wrapped around a box of freeze dried meals. "You look a little pale."

"I'm fine," Mal replied curtly, shaking herself out of her panic. "I'm just getting dizzy. Skipped a couple meals, you know?" The lies flowed off her tongue like fresh water, the act becoming second nature when nobody was to be trusted.

"You go and get something to eat then," Jane replied almost kindly, turning her wrist over to peer at the watch on it. "It's getting late any way; five minutes won't hurt none."

"Sure, thanks," Mallory said, quickly grabbing her clipboard and taking it with her. She ignored Jane calling after her as she dashed from the storeroom, striding across the mess hall and towards the kitchens, hoping that there was another explanation she'd missed. Mal stormed through the empty buildings with determined, angry footsteps echoing off the dark walls. Mal set her eyes determinedly on the prep kitchen, the only one she knew that was way at the back of the building, the only place someone could have slipped a knife from the chefs without them noticing.

Possibilities ran through her mind as she passed the few cleaners still going at the main kitchen. Had Negan known about the missing knife? Was this some big fucking set up to test her loyalty? He knew everything. He had to have done this to her.

The kitchen was lit only by a few lights from overhead, the neon blazing down on the silvery counters as she found Peter, far behind the other cleaners, struggling with a mop in his right – and only remaining – hand. He glanced up at her in shock and opened his mouth to say something but she grabbed his arm and wrenched him aside instead. She thanked her luck that he was here.

"What, what the fuck – what's going on? What are you doing here?" he hissed at her, his voice turning quickly into a hushed whisper. Peter peered over her shoulder, his face going white as a sheet.

"Negan's not with me, you dipshit," Mallory replied in a whisper. "I need to talk to you and I gotta do it now before I get a search party of Saviours coming after me. Think fast – where's quiet?"

In a flash, he had crammed them into a tiny closet, clamping the door shut behind them. It was almost pitch black until Peter reached up and turned on the only light bulb overhead, the light swinging above them. "Look, I-"

"Where's the knife, Peter?" she snapped in a hushed whisper still, scared stiff of getting caught. "I have zero time for excuses, I just want to know where it is."

To his credit, he looked as if he was going to deny it but decided against it, the fake shock and confusing fading from his face. "I'm not fucking giving it back and how did you even find out?" he snapped. "I didn't tell anyone, nobody even cares."

"I got assigned to inventory, and you're the only idiot who'd steal a knife from the kitchens!" she smacked his arm. "What in the fucking fuck are you thinking?!"

Peter grunted at the smack and stepped back as much as he could away from her. "I was thinking that you'd need a goddamn helping hand since it's been for-fucking-ever and he's still scaring the shit out of us. You need to back the shit off, Mallory."

She smacked him again, going quiet as she thought she heard footsteps. Her head still throbbed, the clock running out quickly on her time. "Is that it?" she whispered even lower. "God, what is it with you Peter? You want to go out in a blaze of glory? Sneaking a knife is not gonna work, it'll just get you killed! You are jeopardising everything I've been working towards. Fuck, for all I know, he put me on inventory cos he knew I'd catch you."

"Negan put you on inventory?" he parroted, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "No, no. He can't know, nobody knows. It's just some weird coincidence. Don't worry, I got this."

"Got this?" Mal replied, reaching the end of her short tether. "What exactly do you think you have? It's a knife, you're not gonna take down an entire army of Saviours with it." She gripped the door jamb as her head swam in anger. "Put it back tomorrow or so help me I'll have to tell Negan, he's bound to fucking suspect me otherwise."

Even in the low light, she could tell the blood had drained from Peter's face. He looked tired as she felt, the bags under his eyes making him look hollow. "It's true, right? It's all fucking true. I heard all the gossip, all the rumours flying around about what you and him get up to upstairs but I never thought you'd… Jesus, Mallory... how could you do that with that asshole?"

"What rumours?" she asked, folding her arms over her chest defensively.

Peter clucked his tongue on his teeth mockingly. "You're the Piano Girl. The _favourite_. Some people even thought you were his new wife except all the others are so obviously pissed off about you being there, getting freedoms they don't get, doing whatever you want." He looked down at her, gaze cold and emotionless. "Makes sense now, you falling back in love with him, just like I said you would. Always weak, weren't you, _Allie_?" he said her fake name scornfully. "It's all you are now, just another pretty object to add to the collection."

Mal shook her head softly, jaw clenched in defiance. "It's nothing like that. I'm playing a game with him, Peter. I don't want to just kill him, I want to wreck him like he wrecks everything he's ever touched."

Her friend just stared at her, passing her eyes and going into her soul. He slowly brought his hand to the back of his jeans and produced the knife, angling the blade towards her as the light glinted from its shaft. Her breath stuck in her throat at the sight of it, almost threateningly close to her stomach in the confined space. One trip over her own feet and she'd be impaled on the thing, dead in a closet. She didn't want to die like that.

"So, take it then," Peter mocked. Mallory stood rock still, her eyes flickering from the knife to Peter's taut face. She didn't flinch. "Take the fucking knife."

"No," she muttered defiantly, stepping back again until her back hit a wall. "I'm not doing it like this, it's suicide for both of us."

A derisive snort left Pete's thin lips and he dropped the knife back down to his side, limp in his hand. "See? Weakness. Every time we get boxed in a corner, you never fight your way out until it's already gone to shit. Just look where your plan's gotten us so far." His left arm sprang up and she could see what she'd ignored: his stump of a wrist, angry red in colour, the skin stitched together crudely but still healing, still raw and painful. His flesh eaten away by Lucille. "Look at what you've done to me. Take the motherfucking knife."

Mal forced herself to look at what she'd done to him. At what Negan had done. "No, no, I can't take it, Peter. It's stupid, it's messy. I'd be dead before I got anywhere near him. I can't and I won't!"

He sprang forward a step and rounded on her, hand flexing fingers around the knife by his leg. "He killed people who were on their knees in front of him, Mallory. People who were begging for mercy. They were surrendering and he killed them. Bashed their heads in with that bat until whatever they were was gone just like my hand. I have listened to every single gory story that people tell each other in the dead of night. I hear kids crying for their fathers," his voice waivered. "I see wives as widows, empty bunks and pain all around us. People are scared to death of him. Whatever lies that megalomaniac is spinning you, don't buy into them. Negan has destroyed far more than you can imagine."

"I have too," she whispered, trying not to let the fear show. Peter's eyes were wild, swirling and dangerous, intent on her face. "I just can't do it like this, okay? I can't."

"Then I will," he announced as if it were easy, slipping the knife into the back of his tattered jeans. "I can't keep waiting and trusting you when all I hear is rumours. You don't come talk to me, you've never even tried to keep me in the loop – what the fuck am I meant to think? It's been weeks and I get jack shit back from you. No, I have listened to your crappy plans before and look where we've ended up, whispering in a closet because you're scared of the child catcher." He glared. "You owe me, we both know that. My sister's dead because of you."

Her head nodded of its own volition. A tiny little acquiescence. "I know I owe you, after Aimee, after all of it, but I can't just sneak away to tell you what's happening," she reasoned. "People are watching me, reporting everything back to him, playing games every time. We aren't in a position of power yet but we will be, I promise."

Peter sighed and leant into the door, turning his head to listen for signs of life. "Don't be goddamn naïve. He's spinning you stories that you're buying. You know what an asshole you're dealing with, and there's only one way he's gonna get what's coming to him."

Mal panicked, that determined look in Peter's face giving her chills. He wouldn't stand a chance on his own against Negan and his arm – she had to placate him, play along, find another way. "Fine, just give me time to think about how to do it right," she pleaded, her voice colder. "Another night or two, I can slip away again now I'm working. Just don't do anything without talking to me, I've lost too much of us already. I can't lose anymore."

She couldn't decipher the look he gave her. Peter didn't say another word, just pursed his lips and strode out of the closet without a second glance back.

Mal let out a breath she didn't know she had held, scraping her hair from around her face and trying to stop her hands shaking. Her lie might have worked but Peter had torn her into pieces at the idea of killing Negan so quickly. Everything was falling apart again – her life, her family, her heart and soul. The necklace still hung close around her throat.

All she had left was a final choice to make.


	15. Chapter 15

_The scent of lavender was overpowering everything in the room. In her last-ditch attempt to get back her exorbitant security deposit, Mallory had cleaned every inch of her apartment and sprayed everything in sight with some cheap air freshener that reeked of dried lavender. The repainted walls helped make it look as if she'd never lived there, but still there was mould she couldn't reach and cracks she couldn't fix. It looked empty when it was like that – clean, unlived, unloved._

 _All her life amounted to two full suitcases and six boxes that comprised nearly everything she owned. It wasn't as much as she thought it had been, even when she considered taking her couch, the bed and the television with her to Maryland. All her clothes fit into the suitcases, so it boiled down to six boxes; her whole life story stuffed into cardboard and sealed._

 _Mallory sat herself on the living room floor and set about taping up and labelling the last box in the pile. She had rechecked the removal van time twenty times, and had even spoken to her new landlord in Baltimore about picking up keys. How had five weeks gone by so quickly? Every day had been a blur of planning, of meetings and packing and figuring out her finances, trying to keep herself busy. She should have been excited, she should be itching to leave and here she was, still stretching one moment to the next, hoping for a reason to stay._

 _Baltimore felt like a cop-out, no matter how excited she was to leave Virginia behind her, leave her life behind her. The truth was, and would always invariably be, that she didn't really want to leave. Her apartment, her job, her whole life in the South was wonderful. The friends she'd made were good people, there was enough money to live on, she had nice job and her family was close by enough to count. It hadn't felt like she was rebuilding anything, it was just her home – until she'd wrecked it to rubble._

 _Taping up the last box, Mallory slumped backwards until she hit the back of the couch, wondering for the umpteenth time if she was doing the right thing. It all boiled down to her making a step forward that scared her, her taking a path into something unknown to sink or swim. Negan had given her the excitement of feeling needed and wanted, craved and desired, but he wasn't her future. Nothing about them was healthy and she knew that they'd never be normal. It still didn't stop her loving him, it didn't stop her wanting him._

 _Three more days to make it through; she'd be gone forever and she'd be free. Her mind still wandered to Negan, even five whole weeks after forcing him to walk away. It was better to have that clean break, she thought – lingering goodbyes were worse._

 _He didn't want to let her go, and wouldn't without a fight. He had left his shirt here, his tools and a razor or two. She'd shoved all of his shit inside a box, away and out of her mind. She had even made sure her phone wasn't a temptation – his calls and texts were deleted weeks ago along with his phone number. She had felt like burning the damn thing too, just to make sure that she'd never be tempted to call him from Baltimore. No: he wasn't going to make her change her mind, even after she'd left._

 _It was a sick sense of inevitability that haunted her as he came knocking on her door at midnight as she finished taping boxes. The scent of lavender overpowered everything still. Mal closed her eyes for a moment to brace herself before getting up, still dressed like a slob in a sweatshirt and leggings. Another knock, more insistent, more demanding came and she hesitated. Mal sighed softly and prepared herself, slipping off the new security chain and unlocking the door. It swung open slowly and there was silence. Negan didn't stride in. He didn't do anything. Instead, the man just stood in front of her, waiting for an invitation, lingering and loitering as if he didn't know where to stand. The hall behind him was deadly quiet._

" _You look like shit," Mal murmured, resting her temple on the edge of the door._

" _Feel fucking worse," Negan grumbled, the spark missing from his once soulful, mischievous eyes. She missed them shining. "You didn't honestly think I'd let you leave like that, did you?" he asked, striding confidently into her apartment as she stepped aside, granting him entrance to let the steam off his back._

" _I had honestly hoped you would," Mallory replied truthfully, closing the door behind him with a click. "I don't think there's anything left to say between us, do you? I think we both know what's for the best in this situation."_

 _Negan ran his fingers through his own damp hair, smoothing it away from his face. Laughter lines looked deeper set around his eyes, skin pale. It was as if he hadn't left Lucille's side in weeks – Mallory wouldn't have doubted if he had. She kept her distance, crossing her arms over her chest defensively away from him, feeling uneasy with the goose bumps on her arms. Every part of her was trying to keep her head in check with her heart, to stop from crumbling completely at his feet._

 _He nodded sharply towards the boxes on the floor. "Went with Baltimore, then?"_

" _Yeah," Mal replied, not looking away from him, standing her ground. "Another three days and then I'm gone. Actually, I have a box of your stuff I was going to mail to you. You might as well take it now."_

 _His face fell suddenly, eyes thunderous. "Mail to me?" he chuckled without any mirth, the last of his ease fading fast. "Fucking sums all this shit up, don't it? Thanks for the memories, pal, I put everything you ever touched in a fucking box for the mailman to deal with."_

" _I'm not arguing with you, Negan," she laughed wearily. "Fucking Hell, haven't we done enough of that already? I'm just tired of it. Aren't you tired of it too?"_

" _You were just gonna leave without saying a word to me?" he demanded, ignoring her. His guard slipped back over him like armour._

" _I didn't want to go knocking on your door. I spent too much time waiting for good stuff to happen, Negan," Mallory said calmly. "I know you don't give a shit about that and, I don't know, maybe I'm a selfish bitch, maybe it won't even work out in Baltimore but I want this."_

" _Well I'm glad you're fucking happy, Princess," he replied. "One of us has to be."_

" _I have to go," she said, her voice hardening with resolve. There was a bitterness in her tone that she couldn't make go away. "You'll find another girl. From what you told me, you always do anyway."_

 _Negan's hands flexed at his sides, like he didn't know where to put them. "Never thought I'd lose you both," he grunted, teeth almost grinding. "First time I saw you, Jesus wept, I fucking wanted you, wanted you to want me too. I'm a Godless, narcissistic cunt, Mallory. I knew from the start it was gonna end up with you running away. You're shit-scared of going against the grain, of just being happy with what we are."_

" _But I'm not happy," Mal argued back. She hugged herself tighter, fisting her fingers into her palm until the nails bit into her skin. "I am sick of waiting for my real life to begin, sick of waiting for something that wasn't ever gonna happen. Of course I'm scared. I'm scared that this is a giant mistake… but I stopped caring about being that when I realised that you can't love me like I want." A smile that didn't reach her eyes tainted her lips. "You can't love anyone but her. Maybe it's not a bad thing. You'll get on with your life and I can get on with mine, knowing that I made the right choice, for both of us."_

 _Negan was quiet for the longest time. Her frustration dissipating as she watched his anger fading away. "I made a mistake," he said eventually. "I should've kept a ten-fucking-mile long pole between me and you from the beginning. All this should never have happened. This is the biggest load of bullshit."_

 _With a crack, Mallory felt her heart break, his voice stabbing again in the centre of her chest. He stood in front of her with one hand rubbing at the scruff on his chin. He looked thinner, too. "Really good way to leave things, huh?" she said, shaking her head. "You hating me, regretting-"_

" _When did I fucking say I hated you?" he snapped again, looking her up and down. "It shouldn't have happened because I'm an asshole. I'm always the asshole, fucking girls ten ways to Sunday and leaving them before the sheets are cold. You think I ever slept over at any other girl's before I fucking saw you?" He took two steps towards her before stopping himself. "Like fuck I did. I only ever wanted you. You ever gonna believe me, or you just gonna treat me like a bullshitter forever? Because I'm getting fucking sick of it, Mal."_

 _Mallory didn't back away, instead she just kept her arms crossed in front of her, narrowing her eyes. "Then what was it? Why me? Didn't you see the blonde English teacher down the hall? She was so fucking hot that even I would have screwed her!"_

" _Oh, God, you're killing me…" Negan groaned, planting his hands on his hips._

 _Mal's eyes rolled back. "Stop that. Why did you have to go after me so goddamn hard?" she shook her head just enough that it caught his eye. "Why me?"_

 _He licked his lips again, looking Mallory dead in the eye like he always did, pinning her gaze. "You reminded me of her," Negan muttered as if he was loathed to admit it, the words tumbling out. "At first you did, at least. Fucking naïve little co-ed thing," he gestured up and down. "But there was that spark in those feisty eyes of yours and I was gone. Like I was looking at something I was already losing. Fucking world, God, fate, whatever it was, it was laughing at me."_

 _Everything inside her shattered. It made sense, didn't it? Of course he would chase after his past when the present was fading away, leaving him shattered. "I'm not your wife, Negan." Mallory replied vehemently. "I'm me. I'm not a substitute you can use."_

 _A warming chuckle left his mouth and he strode forwards the few steps towards her, cupping her face with his tender hands. Two calloused thumbs skimmed gently along her cheekbones, memorising the curve and the feel. "Oh, I know. You are a hundred-fucking-percent Mallory. Ain't no doubt about that."_

 _She shrugged herself out of his grip and backed away from him, waving his hands off her like they were burning. "I'm going to Baltimore, Negan. I can't be your Lucille anymore."_

" _You know how I met her?" he said, walking over to sit his ass down on the arm of the couch. Mal rolled her eyes again and stood in front of him. "Luce was a punk rocker, wore her hair red like yours, but dyed. Had big baby blues, handfuls of curves, and this look about her that wanted to get in trouble. I was her bad asshole biker phase. That thing lasted for twenty-three fucking years, so far Mal. Twenty-three years and she's gonna be gone in a couple weeks, a couple months at most? I don't know what to do. What can I do?"_

 _Mallory's guilt flared as she tried to imagine the beautiful woman in the photos as a punk rock version of herself. "You're being a cruel fucking bastard to her right now. And to me too…" she said, wrapping her arms around her stomach this time. "If you love her so goddamn much, then why fuck around with other women all the time?"_

 _Negan shrugged as if he didn't know the answer. "Because I am who I am and Lucille is Lucille. We work better that way. She's had other men, I had other women. It didn't mean that I stopped loving her, or that I wanted to leave her. Mallory, when I was with her, I felt normal. I wasn't an asshole to her, I was just me and she loved me for it. That's some fucking voodoo witchcraft right there – takes a fucking strong woman to really love me, crap and all, and be happy. We're a team, best friends, soulmates. And soon she's gonna be dead shell of herself."_

" _Why are you hiding me away then?" Mal argued, her frustration and anger building back up in her core like lava. "If she's so goddamn wonderful, why keep me a secret?"_

" _She's got family she fucking loves! Family who have hated my guts for as long as you've been alive. Before the cancer happened, she didn't give a shit what they thought. But now her mind's going and it's just me and I… fuck, Mal, I can't keep her family away from her. But if they found out about you… Jesus. I'd miss a last goodbye that you can't even begin to fucking comprehend."_

 _A light shone on him then, the connections clicking in place in her mind: he was just as alone as she felt, both without anchors, drifting away and bumping into each other in the dark. He needed her and she had needed him._

" _You shouldn't be here with me, then," Mallory echoed more gently, sure of herself. "You should be with her."_

" _I just had to come see you," Negan murmured as Mal came towards him, taking little steps to say the long goodbye that was now inevitable. "Just to try one more fucking time to get you to stay. I had to try and fucking make you understand why I need you."_

" _You don't need me, Negan," she said softly. "You need to let this whole thing go, be with Lucille. Love her."_

 _He reached forwards and threaded his fingers through her wild hair, tugging softly at the messy waves. A grumbling sigh escaped his lips as she looked through her. "Tell me you love me again, Mal," he muttered, eyes darting across her face. "Maybe I'll believe that you could."_

" _I loved you," she replied vehemently, pushing the last remnants of her broken heart away. "You really are an asshole, but I fucking love you."_

 _Without another word, he stood from the couch and pulled her in flush to his body, bending down and kissing the life from her lungs. "Stay here," he muttered, staring straight into her eyes. "Who the fuck actually wants to go live in Baltimore anyway? Full of fucking Ravens fans."_

 _Mallory laughed as he kissed down her neck, a hot path going slowly down her skin. "I need to find something for me, all my own," she muttered quietly, shoving the leather jacket off his body for the last time. "I don't know what it is, but I can find it, can't I? You found it."_

" _You deserve more than that," he protested, shucking the leather from his arms alongside her. His voice was low in his chest, body backing her towards her bed. "I let you break all my bullshit rules, Mallory. I'm just the asshole cheating on his dying wife. You deserve so much more than I could give you."_

 _One last time, she told herself as he pressed his palm down over her clothed crotch. Pleasure sang through her skin. One last goodbye, one last touch and kiss and taste of what was never hers – that was her bargain. "I hope I do," she moaned softly, working his white t-shirt up over his stomach. He pressed again and she keened. "Negan…"_

 _He ate up her sins, kissing back to her mouth, rough and demanding, never relenting. "Please?" his growling voice begged, the back of her knees hitting the mattress._

" _One last time," Mal whispered in reply, pulling back to tear his shirt from his body. She bit her lip at the sight of him in front of her, imperfect. "I'm going to Hell, aren't I?"_

 _Negan kicked off his boots, staring at the mark he'd made on her neck. "If it helps, I'll meet you there. We'll burn together."_

 _It spoke to her greed and lust that she looked forward to that moment, burning in Hell with the devil by her side. She glanced over at the boxes on the floor, eyes full of doubt and worry. If it was going to be the last time she kissed him, the last time he was inside her pulling her soul apart, then she had to make it count, draw every memory together._

 _Mallory pulled off her sweatshirt as she kneeled on the bed behind her, face to face with him. Negan hadn't shaved for a week or so, she thought, his beard rough against her lips as she kissed the underside of his chin. He sighed sweetly. She knew every place to kiss on his body as much as he knew the same of her, both using the knowledge to full advantage; the tension in his shoulders melted away at her kiss._

 _She felt his hands skim up her bare back until they hit her old bra. They pulled it from her chest together, Negan bending down to suck on her breasts as soon as she was bare. Mallory cried out and dug her nails into his arms as he quickly made a mess of her. Her heart raced his, fingers feeling his muscles move as he lathed his tongue and teeth on her flesh._

" _Fuck!" she cried out loud as he bit the side of her breast, groping the other in his hand. His marks would be gone by morning, she knew, but they were a brand nonetheless. "Negan!"_

 _He growled and it was as if a switch had gone off, his demeanour sliding back into the man she knew. Mal could feel the cocky grin between her breasts, his hands shoving down the back of her sweatpants. "Love that sound," he murmured and squeezed her bare ass roughly. "Bet you're wetter than a fucking waterfall, huh?"_

" _Yes," Mallory whined, her hands darting to his zipped-up jeans. "Always. I need you."_

 _Negan stuttered at her last few words, looking up at her with paler eyes than she would ever remember. "Do you?" he asked, pushing her backwards so she laid flat on the bed. "Do you need me as much as I need you?"_

 _Her chest heaved as he kneeled over her, him searching her eyes and looking for a truth she couldn't say anymore. "You know I do," she said plainly, reaching and pressing his whole body into hers. "Probably always will."_

 _That cocky smile flickered back, his eyes burning dark once again with danger and lust. "Whose are you, Mallory?"_

" _Yours," Mal replied, the word barely spilling from her mouth before he was kissing her again, both tearing at the others' clothes until they were completely bare. She wanted all of him to herself and in bed she could pretend that it was just them left in the world. One last time she could fuck him and feel free._

 _Naked flesh pressed into her chest, her now bare leg sliding over his hip in ritual. She could feel his cock as hard as a rock against her stomach, hot and pulsing with the need to bury inside her and fuck her blind. Instead, rough fingers slipped between them and found her soaked thighs, her cunt in aching need for his touch. His eyes were wild with desire, watching her face as he flicked teasingly at her clit._

" _You want it?" he growled, clearly holding himself back from fucking her wide open. "I need to hear you say it, Mallory."_

" _Yes!" she cried as he pinched her swollen flesh. "God, I want your cock."_

 _Negan slipped his arms around her so they were on their sides, sheets rumpling, him manhandling her to get the most contact before he sunk his entire length deep into her hot cunt without warning. He felt so much bigger than she remembered – whether it was because of the angle or how long it had been since they'd had sex, she didn't care. He was shaking as much as she was, frantic with need as he pushed deep inside her._

 _Her breath burned in her throat as she hitched her leg up higher and let him thrust into back her slowly. Mallory moaned deliciously against his mouth, opening her eyes to find him staring at her face. "Need you," Negan groaned deeply and thrust in and out of her supple body, his hands reaching down and grabbing her ass once more. "Feel so fucking right."_

 _Mallory slipped her free arm around him, her breasts rubbing up against him as he fucked her. She felt tears pool around her eyes and squeezed them closed, her fingertips tearing at the muscle on his back. She listened to his heart and his breath and the wet sounds of him fucking her and the creaking of her bed. Mal sunk herself into the moment, sweat trickling down her back as he smacked her ass._

 _Her cunt clenched suddenly and he groaned, doubling his efforts. His hips crashed again and again into hers, bursting pleasure in her body every time his flesh hit her clit. "Negan!"_

" _I know," he growled, smacking her ass softly again, like he was punishing her for leaving. "No man's ever gonna fuck you like I can fuck you, Mallory. That cunt is mine, those tits are mine. You fucking leave me and expect me to just take it?" He thrust into her harder, barely pulling back before hitting her in the exact right place again. "You think about that, think about how bad you want to come right now."_

" _Yes…" she whimpered, gasping as his hand slid to her throat, fixing her with a glare. "Yes Negan."_

" _I'm gonna fill you up, make you mine," he growled. "You wanna come, Princess?"_

" _Please, please, please," she begged as he deliberately changed his angle, her eyes bursting open. "Need it."_

" _Come with me," Negan pounded up into her, taking his hand off her throat and rubbing furiously at her tender clit, eyes wild. "Fucking soak me."_

 _She came with a rough shout and reckless abandon, body thrashing through wave after wave of familiar searing heat, her spine curling up. Her cunt clenched around his dick and soaked him like he wanted, Negan roaring into her shoulder as he came too._

 _She couldn't catch her breath, naked and sweaty and sticky, his cock still inside her. She swallowed to push down the lump in her throat and looked down at the top of his head, his face buried between her breasts. Mal knew that when she fell asleep, she'd wake up to an empty bed again, hollow and cold. She wanted to make this moment last longer, stretching one second into the next before they had to let go._

" _Negan, I -" she muttered._

" _You can go anywhere," he murmured. Negan breathed heavily and kissed back up to her throat, still holding her tight. "Anywhere in the world, Mallory. It's not gonna take the ache away. Years from now, when you've got yourself a man and a kid and the life you want, you're still gonna want me buried inside you. You and me will always need each other. Go to Baltimore, and you'll see. I'll always wait for you." He finally let go of her and she laid back on the bed, trying to shake off what he said. "I really should've fucked the blonde teacher instead. Way fucking easier than this shit rollercoaster."_

 _Mallory laughed and felt the tension seep out. It was inevitable, she supposed. He would always be a part of her; acceptance was the only way to let go. "I bet she tastes like Heaven," Mal smirked and laughed at the exaggerated groan of desire he gave her._

 _There was just a smile on his lips in return, a sad chuckle that cut her. "I'd rather taste you in Hell, Princess."_

* * *

 _Mal made a piss-poor job of hiding the damage, having cut herself on his edges. Even as she refused to be sad it was over, she was bleeding. Moving forwards was the only way to get over the man who made her feel alive and unbreakable when he devoted himself to her for two hours a night. The morning after the night before came as starkly cold as she expected and yet the outside world turned its hands as it always did: people mowed lawns, they went to work, picked up the morning papers. The world went forwards and so would she have to, going along; bleeding but unbent._

 _After showering in the morning like always, Mal packed up the last of her stuff, labelling the outsides of the boxes stoically. It wasn't until the last of it was done, her whole life now ready for shipment, that she noticed the box of Negan's stuff had disappeared – he probably had taken it back when he left the night before. Mallory didn't know why it made her pause like it did, seeing the empty space; why would it matter that he took his things? She shook the feeling from her shoulders as she made her way to work, needing an errand to distract her._

 _Her thoughts consumed, Mallory one again only noticed the flashing lights of cop cars outside the main entrance as she got out of her car to go pick up the last of her things. Her eyes darted around, a crowd gathered outside the taped-off line though there were no ambulances or even any damage that she could see. The crowd whispered as she locked her car up and jogged to join a small band made up of the few teachers she knew._

" _What's going on?" Mal asked, a little breathless and concerned. "Someone been hurt or something?"_

 _One of the secretaries, a woman roughly in her early forties with a motherly vibe, looked like she couldn't wait to gossip. "No, no, the safe got raided. Bob thinks they must have taken like fifteen, twenty thousand, including all the money from that charity night, just gone." She snapped her fingers in Mal's face. "God, those poor kids are gonna be heartbroken."_

" _Jesus..." Mallory muttered in reply, relieved that nobody was hurt but angry nonetheless that someone could steal from a charity. "Have they got anything on who did it?"_

" _Not a word," the wood-shop teacher answered, crossing his scarred arms over his chest. "Bob's talking to a cop now. The cameras got cut out, probably some pro who knew how much was in there."_

 _Another man she didn't know grumbled. "Hardly Fort fucking Knox, is it? Wouldn't have taken much to get in if you knew where to look."_

 _Silence fell again as Mallory and the rest of the crowd watched Bob, the Principal, speak hurriedly to the cop, looking stressed, eyes flickering in the direction of the people around her. Mal's stomach turned in familiar dread as the cop came towards them, striding over eagerly. "Excuse me, ma'am?" he called across, hopping under the tape and gesturing towards Mal. "What's your name?"_

" _Mallory, Mallory Keenan, I work here," she stuttered in reply, taking a step back on instinct. She fucking hated cops when she was a teenager and nothing had had assuaged those feelings since. "Why?"_

 _The guy gestured for her to move away from the crowd, leading her to somewhere quieter as people started to stare at her, immediately dissolving into gossipy whispers. Their eyes felt like bugs crawling under the surface of her skin._

" _I'm Officer Lewis," he said, flashing her a badge that was clipped to his front. "I'm gonna need you to come down to the precinct with me, Miss Keenan. There's been a theft and we believe you might have some information that would help clear some circumstances up. Are you willing to come down with me now?"_

 _Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bob staring intently and Mallory fiddled with the gold necklace around her throat. "I have a lot to do, I'm moving state in a couple days, everything I own is sitting in boxes on my living room floor. Is this really necessary right now?" she asked, frowning deeply._

 _The cop chewed on his cheek, tilting his head down. "I really do not want to have to cuff you, ma'am. There's been an accusation and some evidence has been found that relates to you. Is there any way you can account for your whereabouts last night, roughly between 10pm and 5am this morning?"_

 _Her stomach sank to her feet, the wind whipping up around her. She felt like a dumb kid in trouble all over again. "I was at home all night with… with a friend," Mallory said in a barely audible voice, her mind racing. "He works here as well but he's on sabbatical at the moment." The earth turned beneath her feet and Baltimore faded away._

 _The look the cop gave her was sad and kind at the same time, like he could tell exactly where this was going to end already. "I'm sorry ma'am but… Mallory Keenan, I am arresting you on suspicion of grand larceny. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?" he rattled off._

" _Yes," Mal said, her voice cracking at the edges as he led her to his car. "I didn't do anything, just talk to Negan, he'll back me up. We were together all night."_

* * *

 _She waited hours at the precinct, it felt like._

 _They had booked her in and shoved her alone inside a room, making her sweat before they sent in their big guns – a detective in a small town was a big deal and they always acted the same way. "This is such bullshit," Mal muttered to herself for the hundredth time, twisting her fingers around nervously as she sat in an interrogation room, the walls echoing every sound she made. "You haven't even called him yet, have you?"_

" _Again, Miss Keenan," the detective, sitting across from her, sighed in exasperation. "We are attempting to get into contact with your alibi to get a statement but while we do, please answer our questions. It'll go quicker if you just talk to us and get this mess cleared up."_

 _Mallory clamped her mouth shut, wondering if her mother had heard about this, or – even worse – if her father had. She couldn't be certain of anything, and had no idea how she came to be a fucking suspect within a few hours. Something was wrong, very, very wrong._

" _Fine," she relented eventually, leaning back in her hard chair. "I have nothing to hide."_

 _The detective, a guy called Mahoney, sucked air through his teeth as he opened a paper file, flipping through some pages with his thick fingers. "Actually, it kind of seems like you do. Juvenile arrests for theft, assault, disorderly conduct and, well, public intoxication. You even did some time in a youth detention centre for the theft, didn't you?"_

 _Her past – it seemed – would haunt her through all her life, no matter how far she tried to run from it. "I was a kid. I did stupid things, but that was years ago, it's irrelevant."_

" _You stole cash from women's purses while you were working as a waitress, before you were eighteen; you even lied about your age to score the job. They let you off easy on that one, didn't they? All because you were having an affair with your boss…" Mahoney stated, closing the file up. "You have history in the system, Miss Keenan, that raises alarm bells in cases like this. Fifteen thousand dollars isn't petty cash, it's serious money. People have stolen far less."_

 _Mallory's eyes burned in anger. "So, you think I did it just because I stole a couple bucks? I haven't put a single foot wrong in goddamn years, have I? How is this proof that I robbed a school or that I should even be sitting here right now?"_

 _Detective Mahoney was a monster of a man, she could tell even as he sat in front of her, behind the desk. He was broad shouldered and wide at the waist but lean, as if he'd just come from a wrestling ring just to interrogate her. Mal wouldn't want to run into this guy after hours, that was certain; she missed the young cop who treated her with some modicum of respect. Mahoney simply looked at her with nothing but contempt, judging her silently._

" _You're right, it's not proof of anything, but more so of your history. What made you want to work nights teaching piano lessons in the first place? You could have worked full time in private education, made a lot more money," he said, glancing down at her file. "Why that job?"_

 _Mallory thought for a moment, looking at her lap briefly. "Because I didn't want to work in those places, they only learn because they're forced to, their parents make them. At least I was teaching people who wanted to be taught, who gave a damn."_

 _He grumbled again and made a note on the page in front of him. "But you still handed in a resignation letter six weeks ago. What made you change your mind?"_

" _It's…" she swallowed thickly again, realising how her behaviour appeared. "I couldn't stay. I got an offer from an orchestra in Baltimore, and I know it was spur of the moment but I-"_

" _So, you quit without a lot of thought?" he accused. "You say that you're moving state, away from where you grew up, to… play piano?" Mahoney raised a brow at her and fixed her with a glare. "It wasn't motivated, let's say, by a pay cut the Principal made to your salary at the school?"_

" _How do you know about that?" Mallory asked, frowning as well._

 _Mahoney didn't smile, only let her dangle for a moment. "We've been talking to the Principal as a matter of course. He told us about your resignation, how he wasn't surprised given that he had to cut your pay grade down quite a bit. A few weeks later, you handed in your notice."_

 _She chuckled derisively. "Bob tell you all that, did he?" she said, folding her arms. "I had to take a pay cut, there was some trouble with the funding."_

" _It's interesting though," the detective said, closing the file and putting it down. "You had your pay cut, worked fewer hours, equipment was going to be taken away next. I think that'd piss off a lot of people in your position. Did you find out that yours was the only salary that was cut?"_

" _What?" Mallory glared, starting to piece things together. "Bob never told me that."_

" _Officer Lewis and the rest of the unit spent a lot of the early morning talking to people. Your students loved your classes, Miss Keenan, they were very shocked when you quit so suddenly on them, without talking to them, without even mentioning it. I wonder why you only told your boss..." Mahoney nearly spat, getting a victorious glint in his eyes._

" _I'm not saying anything else," she said. "Talk to Negan and you can drop this whole fucking witch hunt against me."_

 _He ripped open the file, grabbing a bit of photocopied paper from the back to slam in front of her. "You failed to disclose your criminal history on your application form when you went for this job. You wanted to hide your past, didn't you? Thought you could run away from it."_

" _Wait, no, that's -"_

" _We found a hair on the inside of the safe, Miss Keenan. There was no forced entry into the room but the safe was wrenched open with a crowbar. The only thing left inside was a single hair. The only person in the entire building with access to that room with natural red hair is you."_

" _No, that's not mine, I didn't do anything wrong!" she pleaded, crumpling up the photocopy of her application form. "This is all circumstantial, it's a fucking set up and your dumb ass is falling for it."_

 _She made to get up but Mahoney snapped. "Sit down!" he glanced at her then, his eyes flickering over her in a cold stare. "Unfortunately, this is a small town and even circumstantial evidence is still evidence. You have means, you have motive and there was opportunity. We're getting character statements from people as we speak. Make it easy on yourself; just be honest."_

 _Fear clenched in her chest. "I want an attorney. And my phone call."_

 _Mahoney crossed his arms over himself, still staring at her. "You have strikes on your record, you know that. If you're proven guilty in a court of law, you could go away for the maximum penalty. I'd think very carefully."_

" _You're not locking me up because you want an easy collar and a page in the local paper! Talk to Negan," Mallory demanded, her voice taut. "He'll set this straight. I'm not that fucking girl anymore. I'm not! I only wanted to play music again." Angry tears streaked dirtily down her sunken cheeks and she wiped them away with her fingertips. "It wasn't me."_

" _Then I guess we'll just have to wait for your boyfriend to come corroborate your story," Mahoney said absently, peering down at his watch. "He might be a while, though, since his wife's in the hospital again. Won't leave her side, apparently. You might be here a while, Miss Keenan."_

* * *

In the cold light of day, Mallory knew what she had to do.

Peter wanted her to sink a knife straight into Negan's chest, watch his eyes as the life faded away, body surrounded by a lake of his blood. How many times had Mallory done what was necessary to save her people from the scum still alive on this world? She'd jammed a knife into her own mother, had killed allies, and without batting an eye, had slaughtered people who threatened them. And yet she was hesitating on killing a man she knew truly deserved to suffer for what he had done. He'd wrecked the lives of innocent people, had taken out anyone he could just to prove his ruthlessness. Nobody living under his roof still was safe – the families he'd broken, the heads he'd caved in with that fucking baseball bat, they haunted her all night and all day. Lucille. How he could take his wife's name and pervert it into something so hideous made her queasy right down to her toes. He intimidated, he killed mercilessly, he survived, he laughed.

Still, Mallory had hesitated to take the knife Peter had offered her. Neither of them would get away with his murder, not before they were tortured to death by Simon. Taking out Negan would just mean another version of him would rise, a version whom she had no hold over, a man who only cared that people looked at him the same way they looked at Negan – in fear and respect. That was more terrifying than the thought of trying to lie so blatantly to a man who could read her emotions better than she could.

But Peter would never let go of his grip on the knife if she told him she wouldn't do it. Mal knew that. There was a lust for war in his naïve face, a boy among men wanting to prove himself a man too. Her friend had watched everyone around him get picked off one-by-one, sacrificing themselves needlessly to save his skin. Mallory saw it building for weeks, that itch in his skin to claim that the sacrifices they made were worth his life. She wouldn't let him die for pride.

After spending all day in the inventory, keeping her nose down, Mal slipped away early from Jane again to meet Peter in the kitchens. He had wide, pale eyes and an eager, anxious look on him as she jogged to meet him, his face lighting up. He was alone now, as late at night as it was, one low-lit gas lamp illuminating a back corner of the kitchen. She could see that he was pretending to have trouble mopping floors with only one hand, his eyes flickering around the whole empty kitchen to check that they weren't being watched.

"Well?" Peter said hurriedly, dropping the mop to the floor so he could grab her as she got close to him. His grip was hard and unyielding. "Tell me you've come to your senses, Mallory. I can't hide this thing from them one more day, someone else will find out I took it and it'll be my head on the fucking sidewalk this time."

Mal swallowed nervously, every sound they made echoing off the stainless-steel tables around them. "Yeah, yeah, I'll do it," she whispered almost hesitantly, trying to make the lie sound good. "I'll take the knife back, hide it inside the mattress. I don't know when or… or how, but I'll do it. I can't keep sucking up to him, it's making me feel sick."

Peter seemed to hesitate as well, looking her up and down, before releasing his grip from her. He reached around his back and pulled the knife from his belt, presenting it to her. "You sure you're willing to do this? Cos I need you, Mallory. You have to be fucking sure that you're going through with this. He deserves it, you have no idea what he's done to these people here. He's a maniac."

Her face hardened a little as she looked at the knife, her eyes turning slowly back up to Peter's excited face. "He was always a monster, I saw it then, even when I was in love with him," she spoke honestly, hoping it'd be enough for her to sell her story and get the knife away from him. "He used me, made me cold and heartless just like him. He tore my family apart back before any of this apocalypse bullshit even began, he left me to rot in my worst nightmares. Whatever stories you've heard about him, there'll be ten times worse than that still, floating around. Negan deserves a worse death than this but since I have no other option, it's the one I'll goddamn take."

But her hand still couldn't reach around the handle of that knife. Peter watched her carefully. "You know what killing him means, don't you?" he asked softly. "What will happen afterwards?"

Almost snorting in laughter, she settled on a simple, knowing nod. "I get it. There's no escape routes. Nobody else would ever be even a suspect, there's only me. Killing Negan's going to mean that I die too. Guess everyone has to go sometime, why not in a blaze of fucking glory, huh? I'll burn in Hell alongside him."

Peter dropped the knife on the table to her side, the clinking sound reverberating. "I don't want you to die," he said tenderly, taking a small step towards her. "I wish I knew of another way but you're the only person who has a real shot at it. Everyone I talk to is so scared, they're just breathing, not living. This place is more like a prison than a sanctuary, I just… I fucking can't anymore. He ripped you and me apart just like he did everyone else. He wants to own you, you can't fucking let him do it to you again. He deserves to die in agony, betrayed by someone who he thought loved him."

The man standing in front of her with a hand missing had never betrayed her. He had never wavered from her side, not even after Aimee's death. His own sister had died at Mallory's hand and still Peter battled alongside her. Her guilt over Aimee had only grown but he'd never hated her for the actions she made, only held her hand tighter and made her look forwards. It was heart-breaking to betray him like this, to lie to his face, to protect Negan.

"I won't let him get away with it," she took a deep breath and pressed forward, hugging him tightly. Peter had never done a thing to her and she'd cost him so much. "Let me save you this time, huh? All those raids where you kept my ass getting bit, I still have to pay you back for them all."

Peter hugged her even tighter in return, his lone hand rubbing soft circles over her shoulder blades. He felt so much thinner than she remembered, full of anger and vain naivety. He'd never survive if Simon took over. "I love you," he murmured into her shoulder, the feel of his voice spreading down her collar bone. "I loved you so much. I don't care that you can't, I just… everything we went through, we did it together."

Mallory pressed her face into his chest, her cheeks burning at the shame of her deceit. Peter was telling her words she had never wanted to hear ever again, the word love dangling in the air between them. She couldn't love him, or anyone, again. "We are doing it together. It's going -"

Both of them froze at the sounds of shouting coming from the distance, tall shadows crawling up the walls around the kitchen. Mallory panicked, her heart leaping into her throat as she found herself cornered. There was no escape as the noises got closer and that familiar voice that called out nondescript orders, barking and laughing at the same time.

"Here, piggy, pig, pig!" Negan yelled, the sound just faint enough to give her a few seconds spare. She didn't have much time left and nowhere to run to.

"Shit... closet," Peter spat out, shoving her inside the cleaning closet as the shadows came ever closer. "Be quiet!"

"But-" Mal protested as she stumbled backwards.

Peter hissed at her, grabbing at the door. "Just do it!" he said before she was in darkness, the door clicking into place.

Mal caught her breath and tried to peer into the crack of light between the door and the doorframe, her hand splayed on the wall for balance. If Negan caught them both now, with his Saviours in tow, he wouldn't hesitate to take another body part – or worse – from Peter. She had to stay quiet, had to trust Peter not get caught, not to show his whole hand to Negan.

It was a few seconds maybe between him closing the door in her face and Negan's voice coming through loud and clear this time. "Well fuck me in the ass with a candlestick, if it ain't Cool Hand Pete!" she heard him say. "You down here all alone, little boy? You haven't, by any chance, seen a sexy little red head running around the place? About 5' 8", answers to Mallory?"

"No sir," she heard Peter say, the sound of his voice tense and almost strangled. She couldn't see anything but blurs of skin and shadows.

"Good. Because I really, really, really want to talk to you, Petey." Mallory could practically hear Negan's smirk in the sound of his voice. There was a flash of black leather in view. "You have some fucking explaining to do."

Her body froze as bile rose in her throat, the glint of something shiny catching her eye as she shifted her feet achingly slowly. They'd left the knife on the table in plain sight, a knife that wasn't meant to be there.


	16. Chapter 16

_The dreadful sound of a key scraping in a lock kept her on edge. Grey doors slammed shut around her, walls enclosing as she was left alone and the air was sucked from the empty room. Mallory was choking, she was suffocating, dying for breath as her lungs burned. Nobody came to help her. They laughed, sneered, turned their backs, beat her until she begged them to stop. His head was above all of them, that cold smile cracking his face in a grotesque victory. Her shackled hands plummeted suddenly to the ground with the weight dragging her down, the floor giving way as her body slammed into it – she was falling, screaming, crying, pleading. There was nothing but laughter and a cold, dead smile._

 _Mal gasped as she woke up suddenly from her nightmare, burning blue eyes snapping open._

 _Everywhere from the top of her head to the tips of her toes ached, neck stiff and wrists sore, heart thumping in her chest. She shivered in the coldness of morning, the light barely poking through the skinny windows at the top of the back wall. It was like light had no place there, in her tiny holding cell; it was dark and quiet and calm, a mausoleum for the living. As she sat up, Mal ran a hand over her face, hoping that soon the light would come and she'd be home. One damn night in a cell and she wanted to rip her own eyes out. Not that it mattered, she thought; if this arrest showed up in her criminal background check, her new job would remain forever a dream – no Baltimore, no fresh start, no new home. She'd be lucky to get work anywhere, even if she was exonerated. All her plans were in ruins in front of her and her past was fuelling it, burning her dreams to ashes._

 _Mallory sat there for what felt like hours, time dragging by at a dead snail's pace, the light fading as clouds rolled past her windows. She forced herself to tread around the squared-off floor like an animal to keep herself sane, reassuring herself over and over that Negan would come through for her. The world would have to end for her to believe he wouldn't be a man and own up to his actions, even with Lucille back in the hospital. She perched on the end of her bunk, trying not to think about what she was going to do if he didn't give her an alibi._

 _Suddenly, her aching body froze at the familiar sound of the scraping of a lock, her nightmare haunting her still. Some young-looking cop in uniform stepped inside, his eyes sharp and judgemental just like all the others. "Ma'am, the Chief's approved the extra phone call you asked for," he said, gesturing for her to get up. "I got to escort you down now."_

" _About fucking time…" Mallory said under her breath, launching herself up and towards the guy without a thought, desperate to taste air that wasn't stale._

 _As the kid led her down towards the bullring, she felt the stares of every person they passed. Their thoughts were projecting on her, words she hadn't cared about since she was a shoplifting teenage tearaway – only now she was an adult, held accountable for something she didn't do, they felt like knives slicing at her flesh. Mal kept her head high and her arms firmly at her side, having learned to toe the line of the law when she was in their hands, to never get mad, never get violent – get an apology instead._

" _You get ten minutes, Ma'am. I'll be right outside the door," the kid said as he stopped in front of a room that was empty except for a table and a corded phone._

" _Yeah, thanks," Mal replied, trying not to roll her eyes; they were small town coppers trying to look like they had big city balls, probably recording her illegally or listening in to her conversations in the least. She figured there had to be something going on, for all that fucking crap evidence that was planted against her, all her actions somehow manipulated to make her look guilty. Nevertheless, she was determined not to let them strong arm her into tripping herself up or to get led by any bullshit questioning. She was better than that, better than the manipulation of police looking for an easy collar and their names on brass plaques. Mallory picked up the phone and dialled the only number she wanted to call, the only person who mattered. She'd barricade herself in and dial all day if she had to before she'd call her father for help._

 _Dial. Cut off. Dial. Voicemail. Dial. Voicemail._

 _She took a deep breath, the swell of anger and frustration bubbling up inside her as she got shrugged off time after time, Mallory telling herself that he was with Lucille, back in a hospital, looking at the end. Biting her cheek, she dialled again, glancing up at the cop still loitering outside the room. Another night in a cell and she'd go insane completely but it wouldn't happen if she had any say, there was just the option for bail she didn't want to take._

 _Negan hung up without answering once more._ _Dial again. She pressed the numbers and the phone rang. And rang._

" _Fucking Hell, what?!" Negan's gruff voice snapped, tone demanding and sharp. "Who the fuck is this fucking calling me?"_

 _Relief spread through her at the sound of his voice, familiar and friendly even if he sounded pissed. "At least you goddamned answered me this time," Mal muttered softly, lest anyone was actually listening. "Where are you?"_

" _Hospital," he replied curtly, his tone switching to wariness. "And who the fuck is this?"_

 _The relief turned to pain in a flash. Negan knew her voice. He knew everything about her, even things she didn't want him to know. "Should've seen that coming, huh?" Mal answered softly. "They can't hear this, you asshole, they're not allowed to. I know the cops have tried to talk to you, but they keep messing me around with some bullshit about you not wanting to get involved. Why the fuck aren't you getting involved, Negan?" Mal demanded, sounding angrier than she meant to. "I'm in goddamn jail!"_

" _It's not death row, Princess," Negan said, letting out a huff of air with his reply. "You're wearing big girl panties, you can take a couple nights in a cell by yourself."_

" _I shouldn't have to stay one single fucking night!" she argued back, slumping to sit on the desk. "We both know where I was when that school was getting robbed. Why the fuck haven't you said anything?"_

 _He laughed curtly down the phone at her in reply. "Thought you wanted fuck all to do with me? You don't need me ruining your life for you, wasn't that what you said?" Negan spat viciously. "I'm on the phone with you when I should be holding my dying wife's hand like you told me to. Get yourself out of fucking jail, Mallory. You burned all the fucking bridge up, rope and all, there ain't no walking over it now."_

 _Mal felt tears sting her tired eyes as her world and last hope crashed around her, the aches feeling worse than before. "You're punishing me because I wanted a clean chance?" she retorted. "I wanted a life, Negan, this is the opposite!"_

 _Monitors beeped faintly in the background alongside his breath. "Excuse me, but the last time I looked, I wasn't responsible for your shitty life choices. I'm not giving you an alibi because I got fuck all to say, to you or the cops."_

" _So, it was all total crap, then?" she said after a moment to gather herself, tears streaming silently down her cheeks. "I was nothing. We meant nothing."_

 _Mal could hear his sneer in his voice, that coldness and desolation prickling her skin. "Bingo. Hole in one. Gold star. She finally fucking gets it."_

 _Fingers furiously swiped away the tears. "And here was me thinking that you crying like a pussy into my shoulder about your wife meant you trusted me," she spat back callously. "Turns out you're just the manipulative, selfish son of a bitch everyone said you were. I can't believe I ever loved you, I can't fucking believe I ever let you talk me into this shit!"_

" _I didn't make you do anything," Negan barked in return. "I told you that this was just sex, never love, never anything other than a quick fuck and some fun. It is not my fucking fault or my responsibility that you felt anything for me. We had fun, and sure, I didn't want it to end but you did so we're done here."_

" _You begged me not to leave!" she snapped angrily before he could hang up on her. "Soon as I made the choice, you were in my apartment, on your fucking knees trying to get me to stay."_

 _Malice ran down her spine at the sound of his voice. "I didn't beg you for anything. We were nothing, we are nothing. I'm not risking my wife's last weeks for an airheaded, naïve little girl. Can't you even fucking comprehend what would happen if I gave you any kind of alibi? I admit to an affair and her family are gonna freeze me out of her last weeks, no matter what she says. I've given up enough of her already._ _You're the one who left me, Mallory, so just fucking leave."_

 _The walls closed in on her again, the air sucked right out of her lungs. "Why are you doing this to me?" she whispered, terrified of getting thrown back in that cell. "So I won't go to Baltimore? Did you plan this whole fucking thing so you can keep me where you want?"_

" _Believe it or not, I got better things to worry about right now, Mal," Negan replied. "You just got stuck up shit's creek without a paddle."_

" _No, no, no… I had a paddle. You just stole it," she shot back. "I got framed for something I didn't even do, and I'll get five years for it, Negan. It'll ruin my whole fucking life."_

 _Another snort and cold chuckle came over the line. "And in about six weeks, mine's over completely. I don't give a rat's ass about your problems right now. You didn't do it, there'll be evidence of who did and they'll be the ones doing a five stretch. You don't need me, you just gotta wait it out like a good girl. Grow the fuck up, Mal; we weren't anything then and we're even less now. I'm not doing dick for you, Princess."_

 _Her heart grew cold, the stone cracking as it hardened around her. Negan was punishing her for leaving, he'd ruin her life for no damn reason, other than because he could._

" _When I get out of this place and I will get out of here," she muttered softly, almost calmly. "There'll be no excuse for you to hide behind anymore." Mal felt a sadistic smile tug at her lips. "You're a joke of a man, ruining whatever shot at a future I had left, everything I worked for, all the blood and sweat and tears… for what? My whole fucking life is getting torn apart… and when I'm out, I'll do the same to you." It surged inside of her, the hatred and bitterness replacing her love piece by fettered piece. "I'll rip your world to shreds in front of you and laugh."_

 _Negan was quiet for the longest time, only the sound of his breath and the beeping of monitors in the background. "I look forward to you trying, Princess," he replied almost sweetly. The line went dead again as he hung up, the screeching tone piercing her ear like a mocking laugh._

 _Mallory's hands shook with untold rage at his betrayal; she wanted to rip off all the skin he'd touched, scrub away all the memories he'd seared into her brain. She screamed and cried, smashing the phone against the wall with as much fury as she could. Angry screams bounced off grey walls._

 _The cuffs were back around her wrists before she could blink._

* * *

Inside the tiny closet, Mal could barely see flashes of what was going on in the kitchen outside; black leather and tan boots, the glint of stainless steel. And then there was barbed wire, rusting around the edges and wearing down but still sharp as Hell. Her chest felt tight, adrenaline coursing through her veins and fear flooding her. Hiding was her only option; if any of them found her, she'd get them both into something worse than she could imagine. Mallory held her breath until it burned.

"What do you want me to explain… sir?" she heard Peter say without a waiver of fear in his voice. "I'm just doing my job, mopping floors, whistling a tune."

Negan grumbled, the sound further away now. "I know you're a little bit of a dumb fuck," he chuckled softly, tapping something on the ground. "But I don't think I am. Am I a dumb fuck, Simon? You'd tell me if I were, right?"

"Yes sir, ain't no dumb fuckers here except for this one," Simon replied. Negan's second in command was in her line of sight and she could see his hands on his hips and a glint of glee in his eyes that put a rock in her gut. "Got to be a dumb fuck, since he's taking all day to mop a kitchen floor."

"I agree entirely," Negan replied curtly. The barbed wire disappeared and she heard a swooshing noise like he was batting the air. "Peter, Peter, Peter… I been hearing a lot of rumours going on about you and our mutual friend. You think I don't know what's been going on in my own fucking building?"

Her breath caught and she planted her back against the solid wall, catching a broom handle she'd dislodged before it fell. _Fuck._

"Don't know what you're talking about," Peter said without hesitation. "I haven't talked to Mallory since I was still in the hospital, can't imagine she'd come see me again. Maybe you shouldn't believe everything you hear, y'know? Chinese whispers and all that."

Mal's fingers gripped the broom handle tight as she tried not to make a sound.

"Funny, you're a funny guy. I get that," Negan replied, Mal hearing a rustle and heavier bootsteps. "But, uh, I know that she was here last night," she caught sight of him leaning in to a figure she assumed was Peter. "She snuck out, met you in a dark corner for all of, what, ten minutes? What did you two have to say to each other, Petey?"

"Not a lot of talking involved with me and Mallory, not these days," Peter retorted, the sound strangled but defiant. "Used to. Back before you come along, she told me everything back then."

Her eyes bugged, her stomach leaping as she panicked for her friend's safety. He hadn't got a weapon but – God – he was gonna use whatever he had to get a jab in at Negan's expense, even if it meant a lie. She tried moving again, desperate to see what was happening.

Negan's voice changed again, his tone more clipped, irritated. "Oh, I'm sure she did, cos Mallory's the open book type," he laughed outright. "Very trusting gal."

"She told me enough," Peter mocked. "Told me all about how you two met. She's a nice girl, a little naïve back then, but sweet…" Mallory could hear a smirk in his voice as he spoke, still with no trace of fear or wariness. "Took me a while to break through to her, I gotta give you that, but she got over you pretty fucking quickly once I did."

Negan laughed outright, the sound bouncing off the walls. "Look at the motherfucking cajones on this asshole!" Simon and whoever else was there seemed to laugh alongside him. "Kid, you are either dumber than I thought or you're fucking suicidal. Please, please do enlighten me. I'm sure you know everything about my Mallory."

"I know all about you, about your wife, what you did…" her breath caught, mind racing as to what she told him about her and Negan, if he was bluffing or if he'd guess. "I know all about _your_ Mallory," he said, disgust in his emphasis. "Actually, I should thank you. You must've taught her a trick or two; she is one Hell of a good fuck, damn good cock sucker too…"

Mal clapped a hand over her mouth as she heard the unmistakeable fleshy whack of a punch being thrown. A body crumpled to the floor at the force of it, landing close to the closet door. Peter's bruising eye peered up at her through the crack before he was hauled back to his feet, coughing and groaning as he did.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to talk about a woman like that?" Negan demanded, sounding wild, angrier than she could remember. "Mallory's got more fucking class in her little toe than you ever could dream. She can fuck whoever she wants to fuck, that's her damn body and her damn business…" Mal heard another loud punch and another groan of pain. "But you talk about her like that and I will sew your nose and mouth shut and happily watch you choke to death."

"She's never gonna crawl back to you, Negan," Peter spluttered. "You sold her out," she could hear ragged breaths. "I'm not scared of you, that's what this is. You're angry because I'm not fucking scared. You kill me, you lose whatever dregs of love there are inside her for you."

Suddenly, it was all silent. She couldn't hear anything but Peter's ragged breaths, a wheeze of pain as he righted himself as she watched through the crack of the door. Mallory's stomach was in her throat, heart pounding in anger and fear.

Negan dragged Lucille across the floor in between them, scratching what looked like a jagged line in the linoleum. "You see this shit right here, Peter? This is my line. I fucking drew it, not you, not Simon, not Mal. I fucking draw the line. You wanna talk about Mallory? You wanna talk about my dead wife like she's some big secret?" She heard a thud and a pained groan that went straight through her. "Crossing my motherfucking line, you pansy-ass son of a bitch…"

Her eyes screwed shut tight, as if closing them would black out what was happening outside. She couldn't watch Peter lash out uncontrollably at a man who wouldn't hesitate to do what he had to do. Peter couldn't suffer for what she'd done. She heard Negan land another punch to his jaw and she cringed, wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and the scene outside.

"You don't scare me!" Peter cried out angrily. "I know your girl better than you ever fucking will, we share more than you ever did! I know-"

"You know nothing!" Negan snapped. There were thuds of heavy footsteps. "Get on your fucking knees."

There were more pained groans, she tilted her head away from the door, hoping for something, anything, to keep Peter away from the blunt end of Lucille.

"I know she was fucking pregnant when you left her to rot," Peter spluttered hastily. "I know everything about that baby."

Mal's eyes sprang open as shock sank through her. No, no, no. He didn't. He wouldn't. Peter couldn't have known, she'd never told him a word, not a single fucking word about the father. Her hands fisted, Mal restraining herself from storming out there in anger.

"The fuck are you trying to do, kid?" Negan thundered, the bat thrown to the floor in a clatter, forgotten. Mallory pressed herself as close to the door as she could get, watching as Negan shoved Peter to the floor and stood over his half-beaten body. "Who the fuck do you think I am?"

"I think you're a coward," Peter seethed. "You think she's really going back to you now?" he barked in laughter. "It's a game, man, she's out for your blood and good fucking luck to her."

Negan laughed again before hunching over, raining blows down on Peter. "You had one shitty mother, kid. Running your mouth off about a girl, spreading lies to save your own neck, trying to get me to go after her instead? I am gonna have so much fun watching you beg me for mercy when Lucille has her way with your pretty little head. Careful, she bites…"

"I'm not a liar, it's the fucking truth. She carried that sonogram thing with her damn near everywhere we went, no matter what. Bet your ass she's hidden it somewhere close to her," he panted and Negan landed another blow to his face, an audible cracking sound reverberating through her tiny closet. "Do it, come on," Peter taunted weakly, not giving up. "You know I'm right. She's never been yours, not since that baby died and you were nowhere. Mallory, Allie, whatever her name is… she's broken inside because of you."

Negan's shoulders snapped and he rained heavy punches back down on Peter, kicking him in the ribs as he stood back up. Her friend was just about visible as a bloodied mess on the floor, his body curled and jerking in pain. Mallory's last hope died inside her, the last person she thought would betray her was lying broken and bleeding on the floor, all her trust shattered around him.

"Tell you what," Negan sneered coldly, standing back up and waltzing over to pick up Lucille, his knuckles dropping blood on the floor. "I'll give you some benefit of the doubt here, Peter. Don't know why, maybe I'm just a nice guy after all. If I find that sonogram, maybe I won't let Lucille get too friendly with your skull. But if I find out you're lying to me… well, I'm not gonna be responsible for her reactions. She's not gonna start with your head, but she'll end it there." He kicked Peter in the gut again for good measure, turning to Simon. "Toss her room. Find her and get her ass to me. I'm putting an end to this."

It was only after the room was empty again that she felt like she could breathe. Mal waited until she was sure that the only person there was her former friend, still squirming in pain on the scratched floor. She couldn't bring herself to feel remorse or care about the blood spilling from his mouth as he spluttered, reaching for her.

"Allie…" Peter grunted, pushing himself up. "Fuck, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I had to, I had to tell him, he was gonna kill me." He clutched at his ribs as he leant back against a kitchen cabinet, wheezing in pain. "Please, please... help me up."

"Don't touch me," Mal hissed, shoving his hand away from her, disgusted at herself for trusting him with her life story, with anything at all. He'd gotten them a death penalty. "You have no idea what you've done, no idea. It's all gone, everything…"

"I know," Peter muttered, his face a mangled mess of bruises and split skin. "But it worked," he panted. "He didn't notice the knife, you have to take it, get him now."

Her eyes darted back to the stainless-steel counter and the knife still there, untouched from its last position. It was so tempting, it was calling her name and asking her to drive it into both Peter and Negan in revenge for all the pain she'd endured because of them, and all the pain she had yet to come.

"I'm not touching that thing," Mallory snarled. "I'm done. With you, with this… let them come find me. He'll do what he'll do. Either way, in or out, I'm dead and so are you."

Mallory straightened up and walked away, leaving Peter to choke on his own betrayal. She hoped he was smart enough to slit his own wrists before Negan found him staining the floor.

* * *

 _The monitor on Mallory's ankle beeped and reset itself like it did every day on the dot of midnight, tracking her location and making sure she didn't stray outside the zone the courts had set. Every day felt longer than the one that had come before it, each minute she was under house arrest dragging out into the next. Perhaps she should have been more grateful that they'd granted her bail in the first place, let alone that her Mom had paid for it. Instead, the guilt about the money just ate her up inside; the last of her own money, her parents' savings and her grandmother's engagement ring had to get cashed in just to foot the high price for the bounty on her head._

 _It was still too quiet. The lights in her childhood bedroom were down low and the noise non-existent, her life fading into silent darkness as her parents slept across the hall. Peeling posters on the wall stared down at her like they were monitoring her too, watching for the next round of bullshit to wreck her life. Mallory was a kid again, grounded for no reason, her skin itching as she longed to be outside, unable to sleep because of the storm inside her head._

 _The way it happened was nothing like she wanted; Mal had thought that maybe they'd go easy on her since their evidence was circumstantial, their cases too weak to stand on their own feet. But the public outcry had forced a rougher hand; her story was in every local paper, her face and name branded for people to judge her guilty without fair trial. Even getting bail had been a struggle her shitty family lawyer had to fight tooth and nail for. But for what? It had all fallen apart to sand between her fingers anyway, her family ruined, her career in tatters with no hope and no money to fall back on._

 _And that was how she found herself every night, at midnight, in her old bedroom at her parents' house, unable to feel anything but numb and cold and wait for the beep. Mal had thought about what was going to happen to her and her family but it didn't seem like there was much hope left. Their lawyer was pressuring her to admit to it, saying that if she did, there'd be a lighter sentence. It didn't change much else though, did it? Her father would still look at her like she'd shattered him, her career down to the shit jobs people got outside of prison, and her name still branded as a thief's._

 _Mallory couldn't escape from it. She'd never get to escape from it._

 _Suddenly, her cell phone buzzed on her bedside table and Mal span quickly around in her desk chair, looking at it with curiosity. She went over and picked it up, frowning at the unknown number on the screen; she'd gotten a scant few calls from friends but those offers of support had long since dried up. In the few days since she'd been arrested, Mal could count on one hand how many people had talked to her as a friend. A week later and the number was zero._

 _It didn't stop buzzing in her hand and her stomach curled again as she decided to answer it in a hushed, deep voice. "Whoever this is, stop fucking calling. I get it, I'm scum, I-"_

" _Princess?" grumbled Negan's confused voice from the other end of the line. "That you?"_

 _The phone almost slipped from her hand in shock. He was the one person in the world she didn't want near her, the one who'd ripped her heart out, crushed it on the pavement and betrayed the trust she had left. Even the sound of his voice made her mad. "Eat shit, asshole."_

 _Mallory couldn't say why she didn't hang up right away. Maybe it was because she'd never gotten to yell her tirade at him, maybe she just missed the sound of his voice in her ear. Whatever the reason, she was waiting with baited breath to hear what he had to say._

" _Lost none of your charm then," he said after a moment, sounding softer than before. "You made bail, at least."_

" _You read that in the papers? Or saw it on channel six? My face is fucking everywhere, it's hard to avoid it," she nearly hissed, clenching the phone in her hand._

 _He sighed in exasperation down the phone. "I didn't call to argue with you, Mallory."_

" _Then what did you call me for Negan?" she paced a little in her bedroom, wrapping her arm under her chest. "To gloat, to tell me I deserve all this because I was halfway out the door from walking out on you? Got your wish, didn't you? Now I'm not gonna get to leave Virginia for the next ten goddamn years…"_

 _Mallory waited for his retort. She waited for him to argue back, to tell her it was her own fault or to wait it out and get proved innocent. Everything she'd thought he'd say to her had a retort attached to it, as if she was reading from a script. All Negan had were excuses for everything._

" _Come to the window, Princess…" he replied softly, almost sadly._

 _Her body steeled and her gaze panned across to her bedroom window, the light from the street lamps casting shadows on her. Mal sighed heavily and took the few steps towards it, looking down and seeing exactly what she expected: Negan, standing in the back yard, staring up at her._

" _What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she said, her face blank as she stared down at him from a gap between the curtains._

 _Negan had one fist clenched in the pocket of his jeans from what she could see from one floor up, his face covered by a baseball cap and a beard until she could barely see his eyes. "You look sick," he said into the phone at his ear. "You not eating?"_

 _Mal resisted temptation to roll her eyes and instead counted to three in her head, like her court-appointed counsellor had told her to. "I'm fine. If you're came here to-"_

" _M'not here to gloat at you, Mallory," he replied, his back straightening as he stared up at her from the garden. "I wanted to… fuck, man, why's this so hard?" he grunted. "What happened, it's not because of Baltimore. And it's not because of what I wanted. I did it for Lucille."_

" _Get your foot off my Mom's flower beds," Mal muttered, trying simultaneously not to cry or hurl abuse. "She alive?" she added, as an afterthought._

 _She watched as he took a short step back to get his feet out of the mud. "Hanging in there. They discharged her home, her parents are living at mine now. I put a couple of her old Percocet in their drinks, just for some fucking peace."_

 _Mal chuckled bitterly. "Real nice job, drugging your family with painkillers. I'll add it to the list I have for reasons to hate you…"_

" _They're not my family," he stated. "Lucille's my only family."_

" _Then what am I?" she asked, biting her cheek for a moment. "I should say 'was' really. What was I? A sweet bit of ass, a way to waste your time while she was getting chemo?"_

 _His voice was gruff and demanding. "You were the best mistake I ever made and I'd make the same one a million times over. I don't feel anything anymore, Mallory, it's been a long time since I did. Before, the closest I got was in those moments when I had her back from cancer for a little while, where she cracked crude jokes and watched college football with me, made dumbass bets about the scores. But I got close to those moments when I was with you. I wanted you to know that."_

 _Mal wiped away an errant tear. She felt numb now, too, as if the colour had drained slowly from the world. Only, Negan was her cancer, rotting her away from the inside. "Thanks. That's sweet, such a nice thing to come say. Now you can go fuck yourself and your bullshit excuses and never come to this house ever again."_

" _Mallory-"_

" _No!" she hissed down the phone. "I'm not doing this anymore, I'm seeing straight through you now. It's never your fault, is it? It's cancer's fault that you cheat on your wife, it's somehow my fault that you couldn't stop. It's a default fucking position for you, Negan. Blame whatever shit you say, whatever shit you do on the fact that your wife's dying, on anything other than your shitty life choices," she parroted his own excuses back at him. "Unless you suddenly, miraculously, grow a damn conscience and apologise at my feet and give me the damn alibi, I don't want to hear it."_

" _I wish I could," he grumbled in some form of apology that made her eyes roll again. "But I can't."_

" _It's bullshit," Mal replied, shaking her head visibly down at him. "A week or two ago, I might have believed you, but not anymore. You're a coward, Negan, always hiding who you really are. You're wearing a fucking Yankees hat to keep your face hidden, talking to me on a disposable cell phone so I can't prove you called. You didn't suddenly feel guilty and come to give me an excuse again. You wanted to make sure I had nothing left that could cause any doubt. So, let me save you the pathetic bullshit – I got nothing. No pictures, nothing you owned, no texts – nothing. Any calls I had from you, they're circumstantial at best because we work together, we even shared office supplies."_

" _Mallory…"_

" _You won, Negan. I have nothing now, the same as you. Even the students of mine, the ones you scared away, the ones you paid off? They won't talk. Too scared of the big bad wolf coming after them to call out your shit."_

 _He dropped his head slowly to the ground and she watched his shoulders slump. "I didn't want this, Princess. You deserve better than getting mixed up in what happened."_

" _What happened?" Mal repeated, glaring down at him. "Scratch that, I know what happened. Didn't take me long to figure out, though I didn't want to believe it. The Principal's the one who hired me. I told him all about the past convictions I had on my juvenile record, all the shit I did as a teenager. He knew everything. He set me up as an easy patsy. What I want to know is if you helped him? Is that why you started this thing with me? To make it easier for Bob to make me look guilt, divert my attention?"_

" _What?" he asked sharply, meeting her gaze as Mal glared back defiantly at him. "Fuck no. I never lied to you, Mallory. I had no idea what the fuck was going on when I was there, let alone when I wasn't. Shit, I haven't even been to work in weeks."_

 _She didn't know whether she believed him. It could all have been lies and manipulation, getting her to feel sorry for him and sleep with him and he'd get a pay-off from his boss for the trouble. But the way he sounded so wounded, like there was a knife in his back, made her pause._

" _Guess I'll never really know," she said more softly. "Pointless now, though, right? Damage is done, my father hates me, my mother hates my father for hating me…"_

" _He can't hate you," Negan replied. "It's not your fault."_

 _Mallory smiled bitterly. "I know that and you know that but he doesn't. He thinks I'm guilty; my mother had to strong arm him into posting my bail. They fight every day now, all their savings have gone, my grandma's jewellery's gone. My Dad looks at me and he doesn't see me as his daughter anymore, he's…" she sniffled and hated herself for doing so. "He looks at me like they all do. I'm never gonna get that back, that's what fucking sucks. You didn't just destroy my life, you destroyed my family's too, just like I said you would."_

" _Mallory, I-"_

" _Shut up," she hissed again. "Nothing you can say will ever get me back what I've lost. So just… just fucking go screw yourself. You're never going to help me, so just stop trying to make yourself feel better. Own up to your shit, Negan; be a goddamn man."_

 _Mallory hung up her phone, turning away from the window, shattered and exhausted. Another few seconds later and the cell buzzed again in her hand, her rage swelling. It buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. Mal grunted and bent the phone backwards on itself, snapping it into two where it flipped open, cracking the thing into jagged pieces. She dumped both in her waste basket and felt soothed by the silence._

 _Negan was nothing but a coward, nothing but a bully and a cheat. Everything he had ever said to her, all the kisses and touches, the late-night conversations and the tears; they were as tainted as she was. Mallory knew he'd never come through for her, not even if Lucille died the next night. Negan didn't love her. He never had and never would. It didn't stop her from loving him, even as she curled up on the bed and let the malice grow inside her._

* * *

 _It wasn't much of anything yet, Mallory kept telling herself; it was just a cluster of cells with no brain activity scheduled for months yet, and barely even a beating heart. None of it seemed real, not when the last of the five tests she'd ordered online gave her the same positive result and not now, staring at all of them. The universe was laughing at her, obviously, one giant joke to give her the best send off before her hearing was due before a court, jury, whatever it was._

 _Mal only had to be about eight weeks pregnant, she thought; any further along and she'd have seen it sooner, she would have noticed more signs. All that nausea, all the symptoms she'd put down to stress or heartbreak or anger – or all three at once. But there the truth was, in plain blue lines right in front of her; she was pregnant with Negan's baby. Mallory hunched over the sink and felt more nausea wave up from her stomach to her throat, her skin going pale in the mirror. It was a joke. It was all just a massive joke and a middle finger up at her future. What future did she have now, and what choice?_

 _Mallory collapsed back onto the edge of the bathtub, her heavy head cradled by her hands as her mind raced over the possibilities. Even if she did all the right things, made the right choices, taught the right lessons, there was still going to be one screwed up kid whose mother hated his father. Did it matter? Mal couldn't raise a child on her own, not even if she was free, let alone from prison if she got sent down. Having a baby was meant to be something special, something two people shared intimately between them but having Negan's baby felt wrong, as if she was betraying herself._

 _The world had made a joke of her life and given her a choice she didn't want to make._

 _Negan was the unknown, she realised, putting her palm flat on her stomach to see if she could feel anything. Lucille and Negan didn't have kids but whether that was by choice, Mal didn't really know. Maybe they'd planned to, before Lucille had gotten sick. Maybe he'd plead with Mallory to keep the baby she was carrying, raise him together like some fucked-up family in a 90s sitcom. Their baby. Her baby. Negan's baby._

 _God, it made her want to throw up again. Her mind was a jumbled mess of fear and pain but beneath it all was a tiny speck of something she hadn't felt since the job interview for Baltimore. Mallory hadn't planned on getting pregnant but the cluster of cells could still be hers more than anything else in the world; it was beautiful and tragic but it belonged to her. Negan didn't ever have to know – he'd never come near her, never visit her, never ask. Mal could keep it to herself, and raise her child away from that selfish asshole._

 _She didn't want to admit that it felt wrong. She'd be keeping the child of a man who'd betrayed her in the worst way possible, a man she didn't trust, but a man she still loved despite it all. Her anger and her rage, her hate and spite, they all together couldn't diminish the love she had felt for Negan. Maybe nothing ever would entirely._

" _Mallory?" her mother called suddenly from the hallway. "Are you in there? Lunch is on the table."_

" _I'm not hungry!" Mal replied through the door, sighing softly to herself. She'd need to tell someone, at least. It wasn't like she could talk to Negan to figure out what to do._

" _You feeling sick again, honey? You've not eaten anything in days…"_

 _That feeling creeped up on her again as she looked over the five positive tests sitting around the sink, laughing at her. Be brave, Mal told herself. It was her mother, the only person in the world who'd never given up on her._

" _Just… can you come in a sec, Mom?" Mal called, going over and unlocking the bathroom door. "I think I need some help."_

 _Angela, her mother, was a stocky woman but held more grace and elegance in her little finger than in all the other women Mal knew combined. Her hair these days was a soft honey blonde in waves around her face, her clothes always in pastels and her pearls always shiny. Her father had called her mother 'cherub', a woman so loving and caring that she didn't seem real. Mallory wished she'd taken after her more; Mallory wished a lot of things._

 _Her mother stepped into the bathroom, eyes widening at the messy state of her depressed daughter. "You look awful," she said, cringing at her own words. "What is it? Your stomach again?"_

 _As she stepped into the bathroom, Mal clicked the door closed behind her, not wanting her father to hear. "You could put it like that…" she said, tilting her head towards the five positive pregnancy tests sitting on the counter._

 _It took a moment but she could see the shock register slowly on her mother's face as she realised what was going on. Mal had a similar look on her own face when the first test had come out positive._

" _You're pregnant…" her mother whispered, as if it was a giant secret. "Is it Negan's?"_

 _Mal only nodded and sat back down on the edge of the tub, feeling ashamed and guilty as her own mother looked at her like she was still a tearaway teenager. "Yeah. It's his. I think I'm eight weeks, maybe a little more. I can't…" she swallowed at the lump in her throat. "What am I gonna do, Mom? I can't have his kid."_

 _Her mother sighed softly and folded her arms across her chest, looking down at Mallory with a stern smile. "Well first, you're going to take a breath and you're going to calm down. Every single woman in history has panicked to some extent when realising she's pregnant. I know that your situation right now is complicated…"_

" _To put it mildly," Mal muttered in reply, taking the deep breaths as instructed._

" _Hush. I know that this is messy and, Mallory, you've always had bad timing but there's still never a right time to have a baby," she said as she sat next to her daughter on the edge of the bathtub, putting a hand on her back like she did when Mal was a child herself. "Nobody has to know if you don't want them to. I can deal with your father, I can call in a favour or two from Dr Robinson. She's known you since you were five, we can trust her. But, I have to ask, do you know whether you're going to tell the father?"_

 _Mallory scoffed slightly, starting to feel a little better with her Mom by her side. "I'm not sure I should be allowed near him. He doesn't deserve to have a child, Mom, he's the most selfish asshole I've ever met. I guess I'm not that much better either."_

 _There was a palpable silence as her mother rubbed her shoulders lightly. "You loved him, though," she said after a moment, letting Mal get her head back under control. "I know you loved him, otherwise you wouldn't be so upset, you wouldn't have done five pregnancy tests. If that baby gets born, whatever what he did, it doesn't deserve to be punished for what its father did. Despite how you feel about him, you loved him once."_

" _It doesn't matter. He never loved me back. I can't stand the sight of him and he doesn't give a damn about me now; what kind of world is that to bring a baby into?" Mal whispered as tears fell cleanly and silently down her cheeks, cutting valleys down them._

 _Her mother didn't say anything but instead just wrapped her arms around her daughter when the silent tears turned into heaving sobs, her hand reaching up and stroking Mallory's wild red hair back down. Mal sank into her mother's embrace. "I'm sorry, honey, I'm sorry. You don't have to do anything you don't want to, but…" she hesitated, lowering her voice again. "If this baby is born, and it's Negan's, you might not go to jail. If there's reasonable doubt..."_

 _Mallory bit her lip and screwed her eyes shut as her mother whispered her own darkest thoughts at her: to have a baby just to help prove her own innocence. It was evil, wasn't it? It was selfish and cold-hearted, to have a kid just for her own gain. "I can't do that. It's… I can't. I'd never be able to live with myself, Mom."_

 _If there was one person Mallory could always count on to be by her side, through anything, it'd be her mother. There had never been an ounce of doubt in her eyes at the police station, not when she saw her daughter in cuffs, not when she'd pawned jewellery to get her out of that Hell hole surrounded by corrupt cops. Mal wouldn't have been able to survive without her Mom._

" _Mallory, whatever reasons there are for all of this," her mother said, leaning back again. "You're a good person and good people will always bring out the best in everyone around them. Even the most selfish of us are just scared of being on our own; all people want is someone. Whether you choose to keep this baby or not, for whatever reason, that doesn't change who you are."_

 _She lost track of how long she cried into her mother's shoulder, pouring all her pain, heartache, fear and anger into the wracking tears. All her mother did was hold her and let her scream._

" _I'm so sorry, Mommy," Mallory said, her voice small and scared. "I don't want to go to jail."_

 _Her mother's kind hand wiped the last hot tears from her face with a small smile. "Mallory Keenan, you are nothing if not a fighter. You're gonna get through this and whatever else there is to come afterwards. I know your father acts like he doesn't trust you but I know deep down that he'll come around to seeing the truth. You just need to have faith in him, Mallory. Keep fighting for him."_

 _Mal would never be able to pay her mother back for all she'd done for her, but perhaps she didn't need to. All she had to do was to keep fighting and her mother would be proud. Just breathe. Just fight. Just survive._

* * *

 _Hearing it was like nothing Mal had expected. That rapid, deep boom of a heartbeat filled up her childhood bedroom and brought everything to life. What was a painful reality for a moment was a wonderful dream, a tiny baby in her arms and a true second chance at becoming the good person she wanted to be. It was there, fighting alongside her._

" _Well look at that, you were right, Mallory," Dr Robinson muttered as she peered into the portable ultrasound screen. "This equipment's not as accurate as the hospital issued ones but the foetal size corresponds to your dates, I'd say about eight or nine weeks. A little small maybe but the heart rate's perfect for this gestation. Nice and strong."_

 _Mal's gaze travelled from her bare stomach to the ceiling. She felt different. She had hope._

" _So, there's nothing wrong?" her mother asked from beside her. "She felt sick for an awfully long time, Susanne, and there's been a lot of stress."_

" _Like I said," the doctor smiled softly as she moved the scope. "It's a little small, and you're not out of the woods, but you have a good chance at a viable pregnancy. Mallory's in good health, in general, nothing would indicate an increased risk of miscarriage."_

 _Mal sighed as the heartbeat faded away, her eyes flicking to the screen being held up by the doctor. "That's it?" she asked, sitting up a little as she stared at the wavy white lines and the blob in the middle. "That's the baby?"_

" _That's the baby," Dr Robinson chuckled, pressing some buttons. "I know that there's a lot of stress about the court case but there's no reason why you can't continue this pregnancy if that's what you wanted."_

" _What if I don't?" Mal whispered softly, avoiding her mother's gaze. "How long do I have before I have to make a decision?"_

 _The doctor busied herself with the machine, pressing more buttons until a copy of the sonogram was being printed out. "There's a few more weeks but if you want to have a termination, it'd be better for your health and wellbeing to do it sooner rather than later. I'd like to avoid a surgical termination, if possible," she said tenderly. "This is your body, Mallory, not anyone else's. You need to be sure about what you want before anything happens. Just take your time, and call me if you need me."_

 _Dr Robinson held out the picture. It was identical to what they'd all just seen; those wavy white lines and the shape in the middle that formed her potential child. A tiny speck of hope in black and white staring back at her. She just had no idea how she was going to tell Negan that she was pregnant or what he'd do when she did._

 _Just for a fraction of a moment, though, Mal stared at that sonogram and the world fell away. It was only her and her baby together, and hope swelled in her chest._


End file.
